


Dino Girl

by MarshmallowRabbit



Category: Space Boy (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst and Drama, Canon Compliant, Drama, Family, Family Feels, Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Light Angst, Male-Female Friendship, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:55:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 46,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29641245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarshmallowRabbit/pseuds/MarshmallowRabbit
Summary: The residents of the Arno didn’t set forth for the Artifact without leaving anything behind. Generations later, a connection is made between a young girl and a distant relative on the other end the galaxy. Is it possible for a link across such a great distance to remain unbroken through the trials of loss and new beginnings?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
> Just a heads up - although part of this story is a prequel, the plot will eventually advance parallel to the comic. If you wish to avoid spoilers, read through at least chapter 179 of the Space Boy comic (or don't, if you like to live dangerously).  
> Thanks for reading, fellow Space Cadets!
> 
> Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. of Space Boy is the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.

FCP ARTICLE 66280, SUBSECTION (C)

EARTH-SIDE COMMUNICATION

For general communication information, see SUBSECTION (A)

For off-world colony information, see SUBSECTION (B)

In accordance with the GENERAL GUIDELINES (page 864, SUBSECTION (A)), Earth-side communication to members onboard the spaceship Arno follow the same rules, with the following variations:

  1. Limitations restrict video communication availability to blood relatives only. Proof of relation (see SUBSECTION (D): Required Proofs) must be submitted by both Earth and Arno residents every two (2) Earth years for continued video communication access. 
    1. Video communication with Earth-side relations is a protected right under ARTICLE 43, SUBSECTION 2 of the FCP. The FCP is allowed to limit and/or revoke this right based on the following factors: 
      1. Lack of sufficient proofs;
      2. Felony conviction(s);
      3. Court-ordered restraints; or
      4. One or both parties failing to participate in active video communication for a set time frame (UPDATE 34: Two (2) Earth years. See Appendix 672(K): Requirement Updates).
    2. Video communications can only be conducted through sites approved by the FCP. Current approved sites include: 
      1. FCP Headquarters (see Appendix 2(A): Locations)
    3. Equipment and technology limitations restrict video communications to the following Earth calendar dates (see Appendix 672(L): Communication Updates): 
      1. June 30th – International Arno Celebration Day; and
      2. December 24th – Christmas Eve.
    4. For up-to-date information on video call time limitations, see Appendix 672(L): Communication Updates.



* * *

I’ll start with the day I went to meet the boy on the wall.

That’s a lie. Not the going to see him part, but the part where we’re meeting. That makes it sound like it was the first time, which it wasn’t. Mom and Dad said we’d known each other since we were born. There are pictures of us, with mom holding me up in front of a giant screen. We used to go to the county fair every year, and my mom would make the same sort of smile in those pictures as the old ladies who held up cans of jam with the blue ribbons on the front. I don’t think I look like myself in those pictures though, since I’m barely the size of the neighbor’s cat, and my face is scrunched up like I’d been in the bath for too long.

My mom had the pictures of our old house rotate in slideshow mode. There was one frame, at the top of the stairs, that always had Mom’s family on the Arno … sort of. Sometimes there were pictures of my great-great-great-something grandpa. His name was Marcus Walsh, and there were a few pictures of him with my great-great-great-something grandma, and then one of him with my great-great-great-something aunt.

The one with Marcus’s sister is my favorite, because it’s of them standing on the Arno.

The camera drone must’ve nearly been touching the clouds, because the two figures amid the expanse of the gleaming red hull of the spaceship are hardly visible. To compensate, there was a little square in the corner of the photo where the drone had zoomed in on their faces. My great-something grandpa had one arm around his big sister, Eliza, and in his other hand he held up a compass. My great-something aunt was also holding up a compass, and smiling as if she wasn’t about to leave Earth and never have her little brother’s arm around her again.

Then there are pictures of my mom from when she was young. She would throw her head back and laugh when I told her she used to look like a boy. Mom would wear overalls almost exclusively when she was a kid; dreaming of one day blasting off to one of the mining colonies. She said she kept her hair short because she didn’t want it to get caught in an airlock or have some slip outside the cryotube and find a chunk of grey waiting for her upon arrival. When I asked _why_ she wanted to be a miner, Mom said she liked the idea of sailing through the great expanse on the back of an asteroid as if it were a surfboard. It was an outrageous fantasy, but I suppose to a kid it was perfectly acceptable since I never questioned it.

The mining colony dream was short lived; Mom’s hair grew out with every passing photo flashing across the walls. The overalls were swapped out for jumpers, ripped jeans, and skirts. By the time the pictures made it to her brandishing a high school diploma, her hair was down to her waist in perfect plaits. She looked funny in that photo, standing in a dimly-lit room with a control panel and an endless array of buttons. My mom was outside, more often than not, so seeing her in that environment always seemed _off._

Just like how the people on the big screen behind her always seemed … _off._

Their images were warped. Dad said it had to do with the screen wrapping around the wall. He claimed that in person, it made it seem a lot more like the people on the other side were close by. To me, it made it seem like they were not quite people. That maybe they were trying, but they just couldn’t do it.

Dad told me to never say anything like that again.

* * *

“Ooh! Look, honey! Do you see it?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s such a big complex,” Mom said, glancing at me through the rearview mirror. “Cool, right?”

The compact red sedan slowed to a stop as we got in the line of cars waiting for security. I looked away from the gleaming white building up ahead; it hurt my eyes.

“Ellie, do you have your pass?” Dad asked, turning in his seat to glance back at me.

“Yeah.”

“Just make sure to have it ready when the guard asks you for it, alright?” Dad said. “Just like last week when we came in to do your screening, remember?”

I tilted my head back to stare at the roof of the car. There was a green stain on the tan material from the time Mom had driven over a bumpy patch of road while I attempted to eat jello. I hadn’t been too sad losing my snack, since lime wasn’t a great flavor.

“Yeah.”

Dad cleared his throat. He was still looking at me when I lowered my eyes. His dark brows rose to be hidden behind wavy hair as he took in my expression.

“What are you feeling like today, my girl?” he asked. It took me a moment to answer as I contemplated the question.

“I’m _nemicolopterus crypticus_ today,” I said. My dad let out a sound through his nose that at the time I couldn’t describe, but as I got older could tell was a mixture of exasperation and amusement. His net gear glasses were already on the job of looking up the term as his eyes momentarily lost focus on me.

“Look at that little guy,” he said, smiling. “He’s cute.”

“Hon,” Mom said, the car lurching forward, “she felt like _nemicolopterus crypticus_ the day of her math final three weeks ago.”

Dad’s face fell. “Oh.” He recovered with an endearing smile. “Come on, Ellie. We’re just going to say hi to your Uncle Wyatt and his family. Aren’t you excited to talk to them?”

Not really. I would’ve much rather stayed in the summer program where I could play with holo-blocks and squish thermal putty between my fingers. Besides, Uncle Wyatt wasn’t really my uncle. He was my cousin about a million times removed, but Mom and Dad had me call him Uncle Wyatt just to keep things less confusing.

It would be a lie to say I wasn’t a _little_ curious to meet Uncle Wyatt. Again, I’d technically known him since I was a baby, but my only memories outside the pictures on the wall and the stories Mom would tell were fuzzy ones. Mom used to tell me a lot of stories, though. She’d known Uncle Wyatt her whole life, and they even sent emails to each other once a month. My mom said they’d been doing that for the past 24 years. She made it sound like that wasn’t normal, but I guess we got special privileges for being related to the Arno’s first captain … even if it was a million billion times removed.

It was easy to figure out Uncle Wyatt was Mom’s best friend … which I found weird. My dad and his best friend played laser tag. My best friend Sam and I would go rollerblading, or sneak cookies out of the cupboard and giggle while we ate them under the table. I had friends from Nihongolia and Saudi Iraq who I chatted to sometimes when Mom let me use her net gear glasses. We played games online, which were fun, but their voices through the speakers sounded hollow.

Not real.

There was something about it I could never pinpoint, but made me uncomfortable.

It made me wonder if they were made up. Maybe all the people I’d see through the screens were a part of some video game, and everyone just pretended they were real for fun.

Mom never questioned if Uncle Wyatt was real. She’d talk about him at the dinner table every time she received his emails. Between bites of burger or spoonfuls of caldo verde, she’d go on about filter cleanings, air vent repairs, and the new painting Uncle Wyatt’s wife was working on. The topics were almost always so boring I nearly fell asleep. Even Dad seemed bored, outside the times Mom talked about the painting. Mom always joked she and Uncle Wyatt must’ve had a thing for the “artsy” types, since Uncle Wyatt was married to a painter, and my dad was a landscaping architect.

I guess it was OK Uncle Wyatt was Mom’s best friend, since she always seemed so happy when he wrote. My mom was an only child like me, so I think she liked talking to someone who could be like a brother to her; someone who she could tell just about anything and know her secrets were safe. There was certainly no way Uncle Wyatt could spread any gossip even if he wanted to. Maybe it had been the same for him? I know there were things about Uncle Wyatt that Mom kept hidden from me, anyway.

Like the time I overheard Mom and Dad talking one night when I passed their bedroom. Mom was crying, and saying she was a horrible person for not knowing what to say when Uncle Wyatt learned he couldn’t have another baby. I didn’t remember that visit she was talking about, other than Dad taking me to the FCP cafeteria and then Mom later pulling me from my chair and holding me for so long my shoulders hurt.

I wondered why Uncle Wyatt couldn’t have another baby, but I didn’t ask. I didn’t want Mom to cry again. I also thought it was weird they were so sad since they already had one kid. My cousin Oliver was the boy from the pictures. What was so wrong with him? Was he not good enough? My parents seemed happy to just have me, so I thought maybe that could’ve been the case.

“Xuxu?”

I blinked, returning to reality. It wasn’t often Dad pulled up snippets of Portuanese, but more often than not, it was to gain my attention.

“Aren’t you excited?” Dad asked again. “I know your Uncle Wyatt and his family are really looking forward to hearing about you.”

I spread my arms out until the fingertips of my right hand brushed the car window as I spoke, “ _Nemicolopterus crypticus_ can’t fly in a little box.”

“The room isn’t that small, honey,” Mom said. The waiver to her voice betrayed I was getting under her skin. “And it’s just for a little while. They’re your family, Ellie; you’re going to love them – promise.”

My arms flopped to my side. “OK.”

* * *

There were three security checkpoints before we got to the elevator. They made me open my backpack three times to check my lunchbox and drawing board. The drawing board and stylus were confiscated at the first checkpoint, and they took Mom and Dad’s net gear glasses, too. Mom and Dad were both given stamps on their hands in an ink I couldn’t see, but they said later they can scan the stamps to get our stuff back. I got one too, although the guard said mine wouldn’t open the locker – just tell them who I was. He put the stamp on the back of my hand, and the whole walk across the giant lobby I had my eyes right up to it to see if I could make out the pattern. I couldn’t, but I did bump into an old lady in a lab coat who laughed and gave me a pinch on the cheek.

We squeezed into the elevator filled with people in suits and white coats, and went up, up, and _up._ We went all the way to a floor that seemed higher than I’d ever been, although I think there were still a lot of floors above us. I got pulled along by Dad as I stared out the wide windows. I could see all the way out over the bay, the ocean beyond stretching to the distance before meeting the hazy blue horizon. Against the blue was a shock of red-and-white from a tall, cylindrical building atop a small island on the water.

“Dad?” I said, slowing my gait. “What’s that?”

My eyes were torn away from the landscape and I made a sour face when Dad turned me around to regard a white wall and a pair of chrome doors. The doors were beneath a sign that read ‘COMMUNICATION ROOM F’ in big yellow letters.

“We’ll have time to look around later, Ellie,” Dad said. 

The doors slid open with a ‘whoosh’ when Mom put her finger on the scanner. As I was ushered inside, I recognized the dimly-lit room with the wide control panel from Mom’s old pictures. There were three big chairs waiting in front of the panel, and Dad helped me in to the middle one before Mom started tapping away on a keyboard.

“She’s an expert at this by now,” Dad said to me with a wink. “I think your mom should leave the Air Quality Bureau and get a cushy job pressing buttons here at the FCP instead.”

Mom scoffed, which caused Dad to chuckle.

“There we go,” Mom said. She leaned back in her seat as a loading bar blinked into existence in the middle of the wide screen. “It’s just forming the connection now. Oh! Ellie, honey, let me fix your hair.”

My mom had plaited my hair in two braids that morning after I finished my bath. As it dried, dark curls jutted out every-which-way like a tattered rope. I watched with interest as Mom gently pulled out the elastic and worked to tidy up the braids. She had plenty of practice; Mom had been styling her own tight, blonde curls since my grandma taught her how when she was my age. It was funny, because the texture of my hair was about the only thing my mom and I physically had in common. My olive-toned skin, dark eyes, and pointed nose all came from my dad.

 _“You’re like me,”_ Dad had said once, _“up until I close my eyes. Everything about you beneath the surface comes from your mom.”_

I hadn’t been so sure about that.

“Oh, hello!” Mom said, tightening the last elastic before moving her hands to my shoulders. She was beaming at the screen, and I followed her gaze.

“Hey there, folks!”

The man on the screen laughed. He had laugh-lines just like Mom’s. I didn’t expect this, and perhaps the surprise on my face showed.

“Hey, Ellie Bean,” Uncle Wyatt said, lowering his volume. He tilted his head as he studied me. There was something gentle there that didn’t come through in the pictures. Maybe it was because his image took up nearly half the room, and I could make out details I couldn’t see before. There was a ruddiness to his nose, and a little cow-lick of his white hair that stood up at the back of his head. As he leaned in, I could see there were bags under his eyes. It was hard to tell if he was tired, or maybe if that was how he always looked.

“What’s that on your shirt?” Uncle Wyatt said. “I can’t quite make it out.”

I looked down to pull at the green and blue material with a frown.

“It’s from the museum,” I said. “Mom gave me money for the gift shop last time my class went.”

“Oh?” Uncle Wyatt sat up. “The natural history museum, right? Your mom tells me you’re a big fan.”

That was an understatement. I squirmed in my chair, getting onto my knees so I could better brandish my shirt, “This is _triceratops prorsus_. The man at the gift shop said it was _triceratops horridus,_ but he was wrong.”

“Was he?” Uncle Wyatt’s eyebrows went up. He smiled at Mom before looking back to me.

“Yes, ‘cus the frill,” I said. “See, it doesn’t turn up at the top so that’s how you know it isn’t horridus.”

“I see,” Uncle Wyatt said, beaming. “Is triceratops your favorite?”

“No,” I said, falling back into the chair. “I like stygimoloch.”

“Today,” Dad piped in.

Uncle Wyatt looked like he was about to ask another question when the sliding sound of a door cut through the air. He turned to the side, his smile growing wider.

“Look who’s back from school!” he said. Uncle Wyatt regarded us with a giddy expression, “Hold on a sec – I’m going to help Kate change Oliver out of his uniform. Be right back!”

What was left of the picture was an empty red chair before a pale-yellow wall. The collection of framed pictures on the wall more than a little reminded me of what we had back at home. These ones didn’t change, though. Some of them were paintings of gemstones I remembered seeing in glass cases at the museum, but I couldn’t recall their names.

“Oh, no,” my mom said. She too had been studying the pictures on the wall. “I can’t believe he framed that! I’m gonna kill him!”

Dad let out a barking laugh, “Good luck.”

“What?” I said, scanning the pictures. “What is it?”

“Nothi–”

“You see that one there? On the left?” Dad said, guiding my gaze with his finger. “Your mom thought she could pull off a pink faux-hawk.”

My eyes land on the photo. A teenager who looked sort of like Uncle Wyatt was in the foreground, my mom’s giant image on the screen behind him towering over his frame as she stuck out her tongue. Mom looked a lot younger, and had way more makeup on than usual. She also looked like one of the clowns which frequented the boardwalk in the summer.

I started to laugh. I wouldn’t notice until looking in the mirror sometime later, but my laugh lines looked like my mom’s … and my Uncle Wyatt’s.

“I didn’t _think_ I could pull it off,” Mom said. “I _did_ pull it off; I was commenting on that stupid nose chain.”

“I liked the nose chain,” Uncle Wyatt said. He was in frame again, my aunt Kate pulling up a chair beside him. “It made me feel better about that eyebrow piercing I had back in the day. Seeing you with the nose chain enlightened that me I probably looked like an idiot, and I should take it out.”

Uncle Wyatt seemed downright giddy as Mom gesticulated her frustration.

“They’re gonna invent teleportation one of these days, mister,” Mom said, brandishing a finger. “You better put in a prayer for protection the day that happens.”

“If I get to give my little cousin a big ol’ hug,” Uncle Wyatt said, unperturbed, “that’ll be good enough for me.”

Mom rolled her eyes, “You’re the worst.”

“Love you, too.”

My mom threw her head back with a snort. The look on Dad’s face conveyed this was how the usual interactions went. He reached over me to give Mom’s shoulder an endearing squeeze.

“Hi, Ellie!”

I looked away from Mom to see Aunt Kate waving. I returned the wave in a mechanical fashion. Aunt Kate was pretty, with wide grey eyes that studied me with a level of mirth. She didn’t remind me of my mom, like Uncle Wyatt. She looked at me in a way like I was being picked apart; as if she could see parts of me I couldn’t. It was a little off-putting, even though I could tell it wasn’t malicious.

“You’ve grown so much!” Aunt Kate said. “Have you started kindergarten?”

I nodded. Aunt Kate leaned out of frame, and with an ‘oof’ she lifted up a boy to sit on her lap. “Oliver just started elementary school! He came home from there just now. Say hi to your cousin Ellie, Oliver.”

“Hi.”

Oliver let out a small wave. He watched me with the same grey eyes as his mother. However, the mirth wasn’t there. He was sizing me up, but I guess I was doing the same.

“Hi,” I said, returning the wave.

“Look at that!” Uncle Wyatt said. “Thick as thieves, already.”

My aunt Kate elbowed Uncle Wyatt in the side, and I liked her a little better.

“Why don’t you tell Ellie what you did in school today?” Aunt Kate said while making a vain attempt to smooth down the cowlick sticking up in her son’s white hair. The object of her attention scrunched up his face in thought.

“We said the pledge,” Oliver said, looking down at his hands. He counted off one finger, before moving on to two. “Then … went over the constellations from yesterday.”

Oliver reiterated his day with a bunch of ‘ums’ and ‘uhs’ tossed in. There was math, and reading, and play time. His school days didn’t sound much different to my own. Maybe he knew this after glancing up to see the dazed expression on my face. Oliver suddenly dipped down to snatch something off-screen.

“We did an emergency drill last week!” he said, holding up a hand-drawn picture. It looked like a round room with a control panel sort of similar to the one we were currently in. There was a large screen above the panel lined with red school lockers on either side.

“These are the emergency ships!” Oliver said, picking up steam. “We can get in these and blast off if the Arno has a problem! They come with space suits! I got to try one on!”

“Yeah, they’re heavy,” I said. “They let us put them on when we went to the space museum.”

Oliver seemed agitated. He swapped out the picture for another one. This one was mostly black, with little points of white, yellow, and blue speckled across the surface.

“These are the stars from the Arno!” Oliver said. “You can only see them from here! Earth doesn’t have these!”

I frowned, “That’s dumb – Earth has stars.”

Blonde curls bounced in my peripheral as Mom hissed my name.

“Earth has stars!” I said, meeting my mom’s agitated gaze with my own. “He said it doesn’t, but it does.”

“I don’t think that’s what Oliver meant,” Uncle Wyatt said. He ruffled Oliver’s hair. “He’s just trying to show you something special.”

Shoot. My off-world counterpart came prepared. Were Uncle Wyatt and Aunt Kate expecting me to bring something? I hadn’t packed anything special. I had some gum in my pocket. Did space have gum? Space probably had gum.

“But you guys don’t have a sky, right?” I said, pulling up what little I could recall about the Arno aside from rockets and aliens. “We’ve got a sky. It’s sometimes blue, but not always; sometimes it rains.”

Oliver not appearing impressed took me by surprise. The sky on Earth had to be much more remarkable than the view from the Arno. Space didn’t have cool things floating around in it like planes and blimps, for one. In fact, where did–?

“We don’t need a sky,” Oliver said, interrupting my thoughts. “Dad makes sure we’ve got air to breathe, and that’s just as good.”

A wrinkle appeared between my brows as I decided to voice the question I’d been pondering, “But where do the birds go?”

“Well, Ellie Bean,” Uncle Wyatt said. “We actually don’t have birds. We still eat plenty of poultry, but that’s grown in the nutriment processing uni–”

“We may not have birds, but we’ve got plenty of other stuff!” Oliver cut in. “Really cool stuff! We’ve got the … uh … gravitational dome! Earth doesn’t have that!”

He was right. My eyes lit up, and I leaned forward, “That’s where you get to fly, right?”

Oliver smiled like the cat who ate the canary (despite the Arno having neither), “Yeah! But it’s not flying, it’s floating.”

“That’s the same,” I said.

Oliver shook his head, “No, it’s not!”

“You get to fly,” I said, putting out my arms, “like _n_ _emicolopterus crypticus_ ; or like the Pteranodon.”

Oliver crossed his arms. He squirmed in his seat as he regarded me with a guarded expression, “We don’t … we don’t have those animals. They’re probably not that great, anyway.”

“Oliver,” Uncle Wyatt said, his tone growing stern. “That wasn’t a nice thing to say; apologize.”

It was too late; the damage was already done. I was busy scrambling out of my seat as Uncle Wyatt spoke.

“They’re not _animals_ they’re _dinosaurs!”_ I shouted. I put my face up to the monitor, baring my teeth. “Everybody _smart_ knows that!”

“ELLIE!”

My mom caught my arm, dragging me back. She knelt to my level, and I could already tell the car ride home was going to be anything but pleasant.

“You will tell Oliver you’re sorry _right now,_ young lady,” Mom said, fire burning behind her eyes. “Do you hear me?”

I looked down and nodded. My arm was released, and I turned back to the monitor with my eyes lowered. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Mom said.

“I dunno.”

“Ellie!”

“It’s alright,” Uncle Wyatt said, trying to dissolve the tension. “I think the kiddos just had a bit of a misunderstanding.” He turned to his son and let out a sigh. “I believe you also owe your cousin an apology, young man.”

Oliver’s face scrunched up like he’d bit into a lemon, “No. She called me stupid.”

“Oliver!” Aunt Kate said, using a matching tone to my mother’s. Oliver didn’t have a car ride home in his future, but he was probably going to made just as uncomfortable all the same.

Oliver jumped off his mom’s lap. He dashed offscreen, and Aunt Kate let out a frustrated sound.

“I’m so sorry,” Aunt Kate said, rising from her seat. “I’ll bring him back so he can apologize.”

“It’s fine,” my mom said, tone curt. “I’m just … I’m just _mortified_ right now by Ellie’s behavior; I can’t apologize enough.”

The adults start trying to placate each other. My hands bunched up into fists and I stared at my feet while platitudes of _‘I’m sure he didn’t mean it’_ and _‘She must’ve had a long day’_ were tossed about as if I was incapable of voicing my own opinion on the matter.

No, my blood sugars weren’t low.

No, I didn’t need a nap.

No, this hadn’t been a long day.

I just didn’t like someone trying to tell me _my_ things were dumb while _his_ things were better. Even if living on a spaceship and having anti-gravity chambers _was_ better. Although, space didn’t have dinosaurs.

I looked up when Dad placed a hand on my shoulder.

“How about a walk?” he asked. I nodded fervently.

I mumbled a goodbye to Uncle Wyatt and Aunt Kate before leaving the room with my dad. We didn’t speak, my eyes staying locked on the gleaming tile as the elevator silently took us to the ground floor. There were a few glances our way, which later I surmised boiled down to the FCP not being a hotbed for children. We were one of the few families who lived close enough to stay in contact with distant relatives onboard the Arno. Even though this was one of the biannual visitation days, likely less than twenty families showed up.

At least the grounds to the FCP were nice. I broke into a sprint the second we walked through the sliding glass doors at the rear of the building. A cluster of picnic tables were passed in a blur; rolling hills of grass and clover squishing underfoot as I picked up speed. I went as fast as I could, holding up my arms to feel the wind blowing across my skin. Dad told me to be careful when I started jumping off the sides of the tiny hills in an attempt to fly. These requests were ignored. Despite my best efforts, I was never airborne for more than a few seconds anyway. It wasn’t exactly flying, but it still wasn’t going to stop me from trying.

“She looks familiar.”

My sandals skid across the grass until I came to a stop. I looked back at my dad framed against the imposing white building at his back. I felt like I’d been running for ages, and yet the FCP tower still loomed over Dad’s shoulder, like it was watching.

“Isn’t she in your class?” Dad asked, gesturing to the side. I follow his gaze to a pine tree jutting from the landscape. Beneath it sat a small figure hunched over something. I watch it for a moment with a frown.

I took off at a run. The figure didn’t seem to notice as I approached – maybe they didn’t care. It seemed the former was more likely, since they let out a startled yelp when I spoke in their ear.

“Why’re you here?”

The girl stared up at me with a wide-eyed expression. She had a pair of net gear glasses on, although her unruly dark bangs seemed to block nearly half the lenses.

“Daddy said I could come out here to play,” the girl said. She watched me with the same startled expression as I sat down next to her.

“My dad wanted me to take a walk, but I mostly ran,” I said. There was a weak wave over my shoulder. The girl’s attention momentarily lingered on my dad milling about in the distance before returning to me.

“Are you here for family day?” she asked.

I shrugged, “Yeah, it’s stupid. Can I see your glasses?”

The girl looked uneasy, but she slid the glasses from her face. I took the offered item, and placed them on my nose without hesitation.

“You have Puffy Pets?!” My jaw dropped, “Mom said this game is a waste of time! You’re so lucky!”

I reached out toward the floofy-looking blue kitten grooming itself in the grass. My hand moved right through it, which was a little disappointing.

“I … um,” the girl said. She looked between my face and my hand resting on the ground. “You can give her a treat, if you open the menu in the upper left.”

I looked to the upper corner, blinking twice. Nothing happened.

“It’s not working.”

“Oh,” the girl said, sounding put out. “I think you’re locked out, since they’re not your glasses.”

“Yeah,” I said, taking them off my nose. I handed the glasses back to her, staring at the now empty spot of grass. “Thanks, anyway.”

The girl nodded. She put the glasses back on, glancing between me and the grass. She fiddled with the hem of her grass-stained overalls for a moment in thought. “You’re …” she said, sounding uncertain. “Cindy?”

“Cindy sits next to me,” I said. My knees were pulled up to my chin as I continued gazing at the empty space. “I’m Ellie.”

The girl tucked a strand of her long, black hair behind her ear. It was so long it almost reached her bottom; I was surprised she didn’t get frustrated with it.

“I’m Qiana.”

“I know,” I said. I made a frustrated sound that had nothing to do with Qiana, and everything to do with me not being able to feed a fake cat. The urge to sit still escaped me, and I got to my feet, “You hang out with James and Yuri at lunch.”

“Uh-huh.”

I looked down at Qiana. I liked being able to look at people in the face. Today reminded me of that.

“Wanna go fly?” I asked, offering my hand. My offering was stared at for a moment before Qiana accepted it.

“OK.”

* * *

Qiana and I spent almost an hour running over the grass. She was fast, and generally had to pause for me to catch up when we crested a hill. To my credit, I recovered sooner from the jumps, and I always yanked her up as we flung ourselves into another sprint.

I was out of breath by the time Dad said we should head inside. Qiana walked with us for a bit, and my dad made sure she got back to her own dad’s office OK. I told her I’d see her around, and she just nodded before closing the door.

Qiana was weird; I liked her.

My mom met us outside the communications room. She seemed to have calmed down, and told me I didn’t have to go in to say goodbye if I didn’t want to.

I told her I didn’t want to.

This wasn’t the answer my mom wanted to hear, but a look from Dad resulted in her letting out no more than a sigh. My parents told me to stay put before they stepped into the communications room. There was a glimpse of my concerned-looking Aunt and Uncle on the screen, before the image disappeared behind metal doors.

I turned away from the doors and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling glass windows making up one side of the hall, putting a palm against the glass as I looked out over the bay.

It was hard for me to say whether that day had been good or bad. I decided to chalk it up as both.

* * *

I sat next to Qiana on our lunch break the next day at school. She gave me the same stupefied expression as she did back at the FCP. The look even lingered the day after that; and the day after that. It took a week before she got used to me plopping my tray down beside hers. My friends Sam and Cindy weren’t sure what to make of this sudden development to expand our social circle, but Cindy thought Qiana’s friend Yuri was cute, so it all worked out in the end. James and Yuri weren’t bad, either, once they spoke up. I could see why Qiana liked hanging out with them. They also had their own net gear glasses, and showed me the different mods they had installed. I wished I had my own pair of glasses, so I could play along with the shooting and bowling games. Mom said too much net gear would “rot my brain,” so I couldn’t get a pair until middle school.

Luckily for me, Qiana was smart.

She gave me a pair of old glasses no one in her family used anymore. I asked her why, and she changed the subject. I think they may’ve been her mom’s.

Qiana didn’t talk about her mom, or why one of the rooms in her house was dedicated to holding boxes and boxes of her mom’s stuff. We would go in there, sometimes. Not for a while; Qiana didn’t take me there until sometime in third grade. It became a habit after that as we would pick through boxes filled with jewelry, fancy pens, or lab coats with her mom’s name stitched in looping script. One time we found a green ribbon, and I braided it into Qiana’s hair. That’d been the first time I’d seen her smile while in that room.

Looking back, it hit me how much of a gesture it’d been for Qiana to give me her mom’s net gear glasses. She’d even reprogrammed them so I could be added as a user. For a five-year-old, that was impressive on a number of levels. I wish I had done a better job thanking her for it.

I lived five blocks from school, and Qiana only lived two. My secret pair of net gear glasses would wait for me inside a deep blue backpack from the FCP gift shop at the beginning of every school day. Qiana was always at the corner of Cherry and Elm; rocking on her heels and humming a tune to herself while I jogged her way. My dad would use a drone to follow us on our walk, and we’d give it a wave as it buzzed away after we reached the schoolyard. That was when the _real_ fun would start, and the two of us would whip out our glasses to play Puffy Pets or draw cartoony faces on each other. After a few months, we’d evolved to throwing fire and water orbs from across the schoolyard and watching them explode on collision. Every play fight ended at the sound of the school bell; Qiana and I and whispering between giggles as my glasses were hidden away. I would take her hand and guide her toward the classroom as we smiled from ear-to-ear.

Why my mom ever thought the glasses were bad, I had no idea.

* * *

It was Christmas eve, and I couldn’t be more unhappy.

I really, _really,_ didn’t want to go to the FCP. Cindy had invited me to her house for a party, and _everyone_ in the class was going … except for me. Well, and Qiana, maybe – she wasn’t sure if her dad had to work.

Unlike the last time we’d visited the imposing white building, the grass was brittle and crunched beneath my boots. The wind whipped across my face in a way that stung. There wasn’t even any snow, so the world was cold just for the sake of sucking. I hated it.

At least it was warm inside the FCP lobby. I could take off my scarf, my coat, and my hat. I could feel the life coming back to my fingers as we went through the security checkpoint and rode up the quiet elevator. An agreeable enough mood had fallen over me at that point that I didn’t even fuss when Mom reached over to flick the flashing lights on for my sweater. She did the same for Dad before turning hers on last. Dad and I shared a look of solidarity concerning our feelings toward the sweaters and their repeating pattern of reindeer prancing around our torsos. With tight-lipped smiles, we stepped into the communications room.

“HO, HO, HO!”

I froze, startled by the imposing figure taking up the screen.

“And what do we have here?” the figure, who by their outfit was very clearly trying to impersonate Santa Claus, said. He stroked his long, white beard as he peered at me from under bushy eyebrows. “Is that Ellie I see? My, what a festive outfit you have there!”

I glanced to Mom. She beamed at me with her hands on her hips. I looked to Dad. His smile was more subdued, but he encouraged me to speak with a nod.

“Hi … Santa.”

“Don’t be shy!” ‘Santa’ said. He gestured me to come forward, and I shuffled toward the screen.

“Now, I’ve heard you’ve been a very good girl this year, Ellie,” ‘Santa’ said with a gleam in his eye. “Your mom and dad tell me you’ve been eating all your vegetables and have been getting good grades in school.”

I glanced back over my shoulder as I wondered how long I was expected to play along. By the looks on my parent’s faces, the answer seemed to be much longer than I wanted to.

“Yeah,” I said, turning my head. “School is fun.”

“Is history still your favorite subject?”

I nodded. ‘Santa’ leaned forward, his voice coming out as a low whisper, “One of my elves told me you had a particular item on your wish list, young lady. I pulled a few strings, and I was able to get a pass to leave the North Pole a little early. Don’t tell the other kids, though!” His voice rose again as he leaned back to laugh. His belly didn’t shake like a bowl full of jelly like in the story; it mostly stayed put – as if it were made from a pillow.

_He’s not even using a Mage Mod_

“Uh …”

There was a knock on the door, and my mom jumped into action.

“Oh my!” she said in a voice even a six-year-old could detect was phony, “I wonder who that could be?”

The door opened and a slim figure stepped into the room carrying a box wrapped in shining green paper tied with a giant red ribbon. I recognized the woman carrying the box as one of the security guards. She was pretty, like Aunt Kate, but her cheekbones were more defined and her lips came out in a pout. She reminded me of the women I saw in the net gear ads trying to sell lipstick and mascara. There was a beauty mark above her lip, and it shifted as she smiled down at me.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” the security guard said as she approached, “but Santa – straight from the North Pole – just came up to me and told me this package is for you!”

I turned back to the screen to see nothing but a looping fireplace background. My eyes narrowed.

“You’re Ellie, right?” the woman asked.

I looked back to her and nodded. The box was handed over with great care. Taking note of how the pretty security guard handled the package, I shifted it in my arms to hold it properly.

“You must’ve been a very good girl this year, Ellie,” the woman said. “Santa seems to think very highly of you! Keep doing a good job!”

I nodded again, feeling a little intimidated being complimented by the pretty guard. There was a gentle tap on my shoulder which caused me to flinch.

“What do you say, Ellie?” Dad said.

“Thank you,” I said. This caused the woman’s face to light up about as bright as my sweater. With a nod, she turned and headed to the door. My mom caught her arm on her way out.

“You’re the best, Victoria,” my mom whispered. This elicited a soft chuckle from the pretty security guard before the doors snapped shut behind her.

“Oh, ho, ho! I almost didn’t make it!”

‘Santa’ came back into view, running a gloved hand across his brow. He spoke in a manner as if trying to catch his breath. “The reindeer and I hit an ice storm on the way back to the North Pole! I would’ve hated not to make it back in time to watch you open your present!”

“I can open it?” I said, looking back to my parents. They both nodded as Mom gripped Dad’s arm in excitement.

I made quick work of the paper; this wasn’t my first robo-rodeo. When the wrapping fell away, I gasped.

“It’s the kit!”

I pulled the fossil dig kit I’d be babbling about for _months_ out of the box. I was met with the image of a smiling t-rex wearing a khaki jacket and matching safari hat, its little arms clasping a dainty brush in one claw and a magnifying glass in the other. Like almost every other packaged toy, the sensor on the box recognized it was being inspected, and the inlaid screen popped into motion. The t-rex began to dust off a large boulder, revealing a monstrous, pointed tooth beneath the dirt. I stared at the looping animation for a long enough time my father felt the need to give my shoulder a nudge.

“Ellie, what do you–”

“Thank you!” The box was clutched to my chest, my eyes wide as I stared at the screen, “Thank you, Uncle Wyatt!”

The goofy grin revealed my statement was almost enough for ‘Santa’ to break character, but he was able to make a quick rebound. “You’re welcome, Ellie Be– Ah! I, ah … OH, HO, HO! Your Uncle Wyatt is certainly the type of man worthy of a fair amount of praise, but in this case, its dear Santa here you should be thanking!”

I laughed, and ‘Santa’ laughed along with me. I noticed again that his belly didn’t shake, but this time it didn’t bother me.

“Thank you, Santa.”

“You’re very welcome, young lady,” ‘Santa’ said, leaning forward. “I need to get back to work getting ready to deliver all the toys to the other children on Earth, so I need to go now. Remember to be good, and listen to your parents, hmm?”

“You go to other places though, right?” I asked. This is met with a furrowed brow.

“Other places?”

“You bring toys to kids not on Earth too, right?”

Realization dawned on ‘Santa’s’ face. His expression turned warm, “Yes, I do. All the good children; wherever they are.”

“OK,” I said. Even though I knew it wasn’t real, I still felt reassured.

“Merry Christmas, Ellie.”

“Bye, Santa,” I said. I kept my eyes on the screen even after it went dark. I noted how small I looked, standing amid the void of the warped black screen. The box at my chest was clutched tighter and the corners poked into my sides. It was funny, but the thing that brought me such joy only a moment ago didn’t help ease the feeling I now had staring at the inky reflection of the room. I thought maybe it wasn’t the paleontology kit which made me so happy. Maybe it was a ridiculous costume, and a belly that didn’t shake alongside a boisterous laugh.

The screen flickered to life and I flinched. I blinked in surprise as my Uncle Wyatt and Aunt Kate took a seat front-and-center. The background was still the same crackling fireplace which had been on screen a moment ago up until Uncle Wyatt pressed something off-screen and the background snapped back to the familiar yellow wall dotted with family photos. My uncle adjusted his blue shirt; one of his white eyebrows seemed significantly bushier than the other. Aunt Kate noticed this with a side glance, and ripped the fuzzy object off Uncle Wyatt’s face in a smooth motion. My uncle clapped a hand over his eye with a hiss.

“Merry Christmas, everyone!” Aunt Kate said. “I’ve heard you all have had a very exciting day so far!”

My mom beamed, “We di–”

“WE DID!”

I lifted the kit above my head, teetering to the side until my mom caught the excess weight and helped me right myself.

“Ooh, Ellie, look at that!” Aunt Kate said, eyes alight. “Is that a dinosaur? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that before! Can you tell us about it?”

Looking back, my explanation concerning the kit – including a bit of backtracking to explain the general concept of paleontology – was something my aunt and uncle had certainly heard before. Heck, they were the ones who picked the gift out. However, they sat in rapt attention all the same, and not because of the kit; but because of me.

Because we were family. Because the people on the other side of the screen were real. It was a concept I couldn’t properly wrap my head around at the time, the bursting sensation in my chest consuming me in such a way that the only thing I knew what to do was babble on about cleaning brushes and radiocarbon dating. The adults let me wear myself out over the course of nearly ten minutes before the bubbling feeling died down enough for me to become self-aware and slightly embarrassed.

“Um …”

A tuft of white hair poked up on the corner of the screen. It was followed by a grey eye and part of a nose.

“Should I sit down, now?”

“Yes, of course, sweetie,” Aunt Kate said, motioning for Oliver to take a seat next to her. The portion of a face disappeared, then Oliver came fully into view as he wiggled up next to his mom. Uncle Wyatt leaned to reach around Aunt Kate and give Oliver’s hair a ruffle. His son let out an embarrassed sound before doing his best to smooth it back down.

“Now Oliver is also going to be allowed to open up a present a little early,” Aunt Kate said, bending down to grab something from under her seat. A box wrapped in a paper that shifted between pinks, blues, and greens depending on how the light hit it was now in her lap. The present was long, flat, and Oliver was hardly able to balance it when it was handed off to him.

“What’s that tag say there, Oliver?” Aunt Kate asked.

“From Aunt Poppy, Uncle Raul, and Cousin Ellie,” Oliver read in a dutiful manner. He made a quick glance to the screen before running his fingers under the crease in the paper.

My heart sank. A heavy feeling started to drag me down as Oliver tore the wrapping paper away and revealed a giant art set. His face lit up, and he practically bounced in his seat as is eyes danced over the colorful array of pens and pencils.

I hadn’t picked the art set out. I’d never even seen the item in his arms until just now. I hated the feeling of my aunt Kate saying that it was from me. I hated the fact that I hadn’t even thought about my aunt Kate, Uncle Wyatt, or Cousin Oliver at all between our last visit months ago and just earlier this morning.

“Thank you!” Oliver said, smiling ear-to-ear. He wasn’t like me – he didn’t have to be told to say ‘thank you.’

“You’re welcome, Ollie,” my mom said, delighted by the reaction. “Your mom tells me you like to draw – just like her. Have you drawn anything fun lately?”

My eyes wandered away from the screen as Oliver mentioned something about baseball before running off. His voice faintly came through the speakers, and my parents chuckled. I continued staring at the dashboard, my eyes coming to rest on the blank screen of the tablet sitting in the loading dock. It was devoid of the fingerprints, scuffs marks, and smudges of chocolate akin to the one I had at home.

“… and Riley won the game with the last home run!” Oliver said. I looked up at the tail end of the statement, missing the picture he was holding up. Oliver didn’t seem to notice, although his eyes met mine for a moment before looking down to his lap. He picked up a piece of paper in a delicate fashion, keeping the image on the other side hidden.

“That’s a good one, there,” Uncle Wyatt said. There was an encouraging note to his voice, which he accented with raised brows when Oliver glanced his way.

“It’s OK,” Oliver said, turning the paper around. It took me longer than it probably should have to figure out what the creature of golds, blues, and browns was supposed to be. To be fair, what Oliver drew wasn’t actually a real animal of any sort. It was a person – someone with tanned skin and two long plaits of dark hair falling over their shoulders. The figure’s arms and legs were sprawled out like a flying squirrel jumping from tree-to-tree, but the hood on the golden suit they were wearing clearly depicted a long beak splashed with teal.

 _“Nemicolopterus crypticus,”_ I said, my voice barely a whisper.

“I looked it up,” Oliver said, talking to his shoes. “You thought the anti-gravity dome was like flying. It’s not, but I guess the nemi ... nemi-co-loc-tipus cryptis can fly, so if you were like that, then maybe you could also fly.”

My parents flinched at the loud ‘thump’ accompanying my fossil kit hitting the carpet. I dashed to the door, hitting the ‘open’ button again and again until a gust of warm air from the hallway blew over me. I ended up running the opposite way of the elevators and down the hall of metallic doors to my right and windows to my left. I kept my eyes fixed ahead, and eventually found myself facing a large door stamped with ‘EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY.’ I considered pushing it open anyway, but years of engraving from both parents and teachers concerning what I could and couldn’t touch stilled my hand. It was those bold letters stamped in red that finally forced me to a stop. My expression crumbled as a voice drifted from behind me.

“Ellie!”

I crouched into a squat. My forehead touched my knees as I squeezed my eyes closed so hard I started to see red splotches across my lids.

“Ellie, baby, are you OK?” my dad said. I could feel the weight of a large hand on my back. “Are you feeling sick?”

A shook my head. A lighter touch began stroking my hair.

“It’s been a busy morning,” my mom said in a whisper. “We had to get up so early for security; she might need a nap.”

“I don’t need a nap,” I mumbled.

The hum my mom made clearly disputed my statement. I lifted my head and looked over my shoulder. My parents’ worried expressions didn’t make me feel any better.

“I didn’t get him that present,” I said.

“What?” Dad said. Realization relaxed the furrow to his brow. “Ah, you mean the art set.”

“Well, it’s from all of us,” my mom said as my dad nodded in agreement. “You were just so busy, honey, that your dad and I had to pick something out before it got too late; I’m sorry we didn’t tell you about it before.”

I dipped my head to stare at a white tile so shiny I could almost see myself in it, “I didn’t get him anything.”

“Oh, Ellie, no one is upset,” Mom said as she continued to stroke my hair. “Oliver’s birthday is coming up soon; you can pick out a present for him then, OK?”

I nodded, but kept my eyes averted. My focus shifted to the large, glass windows behind my parents. I stared out over the bay until a seagull in the distance caught my attention. A tugging sensation pulled me like a string, and I hopped to my feet.

“Ellie?”

I pushed myself between my parents and dashed down the hall. Once again, I pressed the ‘open’ button as if my life depended on it before the doors parted with a soft ‘woosh.’

“Ellie!” My aunt Kate said. She had an arm around Oliver, who was leaning against her with his back hunched and arms crossed. On his other side was my Uncle Wyatt, who had crouched down to Oliver’s level and had been mid-sentence when I stormed in.

“I didn’t get you anything!” I shouted. This grabbed Oliver’s attention. A hint of confusion touched the pinched nature to his features. Those features, and everything else, disappeared from the large screen when I yanked the tablet out of its dock. The FCP’s logo blinked on the screen for a moment, before the image of my family reappeared in a much smaller format.

“I can’t fly,” I said, turning around. “But sometimes I try; I’ll show you.”

The doors opened again, and my mom let out a startled sound as I squeezed around her and headed out to the left this time. I didn’t have to see her to know the frustrated noise she made was accompanied by her hands being thrown in the air.

“Can you _please_ stay put?!”

“Oliver and I are going flying,” I said, pressing the button for the elevator. While I waited, I found the icon on the tablet to switch to the rear-facing camera.

“It’s a cool view up here,” I said, holding the tablet as far above my head as I could. I panned to the right to take in the large windows. “You can see the ocean and the big buildings on the other side of the water. I’ve been down there once to get seashells.”

A few seconds passed. When no sound came, I lowered the tablet with a frown, wondering if it was on mute. Most of the screen displayed the rear camera, but there was a small square in the corner showing my aunt, uncle, and cousin; it reminded me a little of the picture we had of my great-something aunt and my great-something grandpa while they stood on the Arno. Even though the lopsided view of the pier wasn’t anything nearly as impressive as a spaceship, the people crowded in the little corner looked nothing short of in awe.

“Look at that, Kate,” Uncle Wyatt said, directing her gaze with his finger. “That skyline used to be practically flat! You remember when the Ferris wheel was the tallest thing? Just look at that! It’s not even half the height as the skyscraper next to it!”

“Goodness,” Aunt Kate said, putting a hand to her chest. “Baltissipi has really changed! It looks so _industrial_ now.”

The elevator let out a ding. I could see my aunt and uncle deflate a little when the picture shifted from the skyline to my shoes.

“Ellie!” my mom said, dashing to catch the elevator. “They don’t let us take the tablets out of the communications rooms anymore, honey. We need to put it back, OK?”

“But she’s just a kid who doesn’t know any better,” Dad said. He caught mom’s arm and gave her a wink. Irritation crossed Mom’s features.

“If they take away our privileges …”

“They didn’t take away your privileges when you spilled a bottle of pop on a multi-million-dollar communications console,” Dad said, his smile widening. “I don’t think they’ll go after a six-year-old walking around in the grass.”

The doors began to close, and my mom looked down at me with a worried expression.

Uncle Wyatt’s voice floated from the tablet, “We’ll keep her out of trouble, Poppy! Well, out of _more_ trouble.”

The doors closed and the elevator began to move with a pleasant hum. There wasn’t much to see in the polished elevator, so the picture remained on the glowing touch screen which flashed the floor numbers as we descended. The trip to the first floor was at least a fast one since the holiday appeared to leave most of the building close to empty.

“Wyatt,” Aunt Kate said, reflecting the tone my mom had earlier. “They wouldn’t really do something, would they? Are you sure this is OK?”

“Trust me,” Uncle Wyatt said. He leaned forward in his seat, an eager grin on his face as he regarded the gold doors. “My cousin did _much_ worse in her day. She even took one of these things out so we could go to that Loco Koko’s concert for my twenty-third birthday.”

_“Wyatt.”_

“Which you should _never_ do,” Uncle Wyatt said, wagging his finger at the screen. “Always do as your mother says, Ellie Bean. This is a one-time-only thing, OK? This will be the only time you’re going to tuck that tablet under your armpit so it isn’t noticeable. And this will most _certainly_ be the only time you’re going to play dumb if any of the security folk stop you and ask you about taking it outside. Also, don’t be afraid to play the ‘I’m-just-a-cute-kid-and-it’s-Christmas’ card, if you have to.”

Uncle Wyatt chuckled, “Huh; ‘Christmas card.’ You get that, Kate? I said–”

“Uh-huh.”

The elevator dinged, and I scrambled to put the tablet under my arm as the doors opened. The journey across the grand lobby toward the lawn at the rear of the building was a blur – I’m sure the only thing that saved me from being stopped for suspicious activity was the fact that I looked like the least threatening being in existence with my puny frame and blinking Christmas sweater. I’m certain if anyone had bothered to question me, I would’ve folded like a lawn chair. Lucky for me, I was only garnered sideways glances before the people milling about went back to their own high-spirited conversations.

_Ugh, my coat_

The fact that I had neglected to grab my coat on the way out hit me like a train the second I was smacked by a blast of wind. I shivered, but plowed onward. I didn’t dare to run until I was a good way away from the building … which to a dumb kid was roughly about ten feet.

“OK!” I said, lifting the tablet above my head again. “This is how I fly! I don’t go very far, so don’t laugh.”

It only took a few minutes of running for the shock of cold to shift to me suddenly feeling almost _too_ hot. I repeatedly leapt off the short hills, pulling the tablet to my chest at the last minute as I rolled over the crunchy grass. My aunt Kate made worried sounds the first few jumps, but her protests died down as I approached the beach. When the grass beneath my feet fell away to sand, I collapsed, gulping in the salty air. My arms were sorer than they’d ever been, but I still lifted the tablet up as high as I could go.

There was silence again. My family in their little square just stared. The wind had died down some, and the waves came in and out in a languid manner. I was a little put out the sight wasn’t more impressive; on warmer days there’d be boats in the distance, and maybe even a pod of dolphins. I had to tilt the tablet upward if I wanted to give my family a sign of any sort of life. A seagull flew directly overhead, and Oliver jumped at the sound of its high-pitched squawk.

“See, they can really fly,” I said, turning to follow the bird’s flight. The seagull circled for a moment before noting I didn’t appear to be a bearer of Francistani fries from the FCP’s cafeteria. With another squawk, it flapped away toward the tall building – a lighthouse, as I’d learned – in the distance.

“I wish I could fly,” I said. The statement was made in passing, and more to myself. It was something that crossed my mind almost any time I watched a bird float by, but this was the first time I really voiced the sentiment. It was funny how much it used to _hurt_ that I couldn’t fly. It was a silly thing for a child to lament over; a testament to the carefree nature of my upbringing. I miss those days.

“You can fly.”

I lowered the tablet to eye level. It was the first time Oliver had spoken since we’d left the communications room. He stared back at me with a steadfast expression.

“I saw you just now,” Oliver said. “You can fly. Here-” Oliver lifted up the picture in his lap, the one of a girl with plaits soaring against a backdrop filled with stars. “See? You can fly! Just like a nemlo … nemotus … like a dinosaur.”

I couldn’t fight back the smile tugging at my cheeks. I crossed my legs and wiggled myself into a more comfortable position. “I look like a superhero!”

“Really?” Oliver tilted his head to look at the drawing. “I kinda thought you ended up looking like you were in pajamas …”

The mental image of me flying around in my neon green Puffy Pets onesie, fuzzy tail and all, made me snort. Oliver brightened, and started to laugh along with me.

“Well, superheroes do have a tendency to fly around looking like they’re in pajamas,” Uncle Wyatt chimed in. “I think you’d fit right in.”

I puffed out my chest. “I’d be Nemicolopterus Crypticus! And I’d fly around saving people from bugs and stuff!”

Oliver frowned. “Bugs? What’s wrong with bugs? Do they smell or something? And that name is really hard to say.”

“Oliver,” my aunt Kate warned.

“Bugs are gross – and I guess that’s true,” I said. I laid down on my back, pointing the camera straight up at the churning grey clouds. “People would have trouble calling for help if they have to say Nemicolopterus Crypticus all the time.”

“You need a good name,” Oliver said. “Something the bad guys would be afraid of.” He put his chin in his hand as if working out a complex puzzle, “What did it say on your box?”

I hummed as I pulled up the memory, “Uh … ‘The Big Dino Fossil Kit for Big Dino Kids’.”

“See? That’s easier,” Oliver said.

“Nuh-uh,” I said, laughing, “It’s just as long as Nemicolopterus Crypticus!”

“Not the whole thing!” Oliver said in his defense. “Just ‘Dino Kid’! You could be Dino Kid, or Dino Girl, or Captain Dino. Ooh! Or Dr. Dino!”

Something wet landed on my forehead. I sat up and rubbed it away. “I guess those do sound more superhero-y,” I said. “But I have to go to medical school to be Dr. Dino, and I can’t do that until I get a driver’s license … I think I like Dino Girl the best.”

“Yeah!” Oliver said, leaning forward in his seat. “You’re Dino Girl! You fly around saving people from Wargals!”

I made a face like I’d smelled something unpleasant, “What’s a Wargal?”

“It’s a–”

“Look!”

My uncle’s voice caused us to go silent. We watched as white tufts of snow started to drift down from the grey sky, falling to the sand or dissolving into the ocean. My aunt Kate lifted a hand over mouth and let out a soft gasp.

“It’s snowing,” I said, making the sort of obvious statement only a child could get away with. I got to my feet and lifted up the tablet, turning in slow circles.

“I’ll tell you about Wargals later,” Oliver whispered.

“OK,” I said, already looking forward to our next family call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback and comments are always welcome!


	2. Chapter 2

“Eight is more than six,” I said, leaning my head into my hand. My elbow was propped up on the control panel, my face much closer to the giant screen than I would’ve been able to get away with if my parents were in the room. Oliver was probably getting an in-depth study of my nostrils. He was polite enough not to say anything if he was.

“Yeah, duh,” Oliver said. He glanced up from the figurine he was putting together with a raised brow.

Uncle Wyatt started getting Oliver toys that came with some level of preassembly such as remote-controlled drones and robotic animals. It was the type of play adults made when trying to take something fun and make it educational. Most kids weren’t a fan, Oliver included. My cousin still powered through putting them together the best he could. This usually meant an arm being attached where a leg should be, or a propeller being installed upside-down.

When it came down to it, I knew for a fact I couldn’t do any better. This still didn’t deter me from pointing out everything I thought he was doing wrong. It’s easier to seem smarter than you are when you don’t actually have to back anything up.

“You did more laps around your gym,” Oliver said, continuing his thought as the shoulder of his action figure attached to the torso with a ‘click.’ “But my gym is bigger, so that means I ran more.”

“I bet I was faster,” I said. I sat back in the large chair so I could get a better view of the figure’s elbow lifting up and down as Oliver pressed a button on its back. “I think you used the wrong connecter; it looks like he’s doing the chicken dance.”

Oliver groaned as he rolled his head on his shoulders. “Power Man is _supposed_ to lift his arms up in a punch.”

“I like this way better,” I said, grinning to show off the gap from one of my front teeth being missing. Qiana’s had already fallen out a month back, and I’d been jealous of the high-pitched whistle she’d been able to do ever since.

Grey eyes studied my face for a moment. Oliver noted my missing tooth, cataloging the information for later. Our future held a conference over how much we raked in from the tooth fairy, and how we could go about bargaining for better compensation. For being lightyears apart, our lives were surprisingly similar, and we used this knowledge to compare and contrast certain rules and liberties provided by our parents. Uncle Wyatt seemed to be the only adult who found it amusing when Oliver and I would use information we’d picked up over the past two years to negotiate later bedtimes and larger dessert portions.

Oliver looked away from me and returned his attention to the action figure. He pushed the button on its back a few more times, watching the arm clad in shining red and blue lift up and down. He looked so serious he may as well have been diffusing a bomb. In the blink of an eye, the inquisitive look fell away as Oliver began to laugh. Oliver was always quick to laugh; sometimes out of nowhere. My aunt and uncle were this way too, which was probably where he got it from.

“He looks … he looks so dumb,” Oliver said, squeezing his eyes closed. His merriment was contagious, and I couldn’t help but join in.

“I think it’s cool,” I said between chuckles. “Chickens are descendants of maniraptoriformes, so they’re like dinosaurs! The chicken dance is really the dinosaur dance!”

“Oh!” Oliver said, looking up. “That can be Dino Girl’s victory dance when she throws the bad guys in jail!”

“If any of the bad guys are left!” I said, putting my hands up like claws. “Dino Girl is an omnivore, and sometimes those bad guys look real tasty!”

“Gross!” Oliver said, laughing again.

The rest of the visit played out in a similar routine to what we’d come accustomed to over the years. Oliver and I wrote emails to each other once a month, so we were always up-to-date on what the other was up to. This left the semi-annual visits open for us being able to share drawings, or stories that required arm gestures and facial expressions to do them justice.

I raised my voice by a few pitches and let out little huffs as I told Oliver how Sam said she was “too grown up” for rock collecting. This had the desired effect of Oliver thinking Sam had to be out of her mind, since the concept of going out searching for cool rocks and fossils never failed to fascinate him. I followed up with another story which included a clever comment delivered in a solid deadpan as I mimicked Qiana breaking character in the school play to tell the male lead he got his lines wrong. Oliver always liked when I told stories about Qiana, since Qiana had the gift of being hilarious without even trying.

When I’d worn myself out, Oliver jumped in to tell me about his friends Connie and Riley convincing him to become a part of their group Halloween effort. The theme was based off a book they read in class – Alice in Wonderland. His first choice had been the Mad Hatter, but to his displeasure he’d been stuck as the White Rabbit. It turned out Riley had already called the Mad Hatter, and Connie said she’d look silly as Alice without the White Rabbit. It took some prodding, but eventually a group picture was produced. The picture was only on the screen for a moment before my giggling over the whiskers drawn on Oliver’s cheeks resulted in it being swiped away with a groan.

Oliver knew better than to allow me to mull over an idea that could result in a ridiculous nickname, so he quickly dived into a retelling of trick-or-treating escapades. He wasn’t as good at describing details or doing the voices as I was, but his overall enthusiasm always worked to fill in the gaps. I also liked hearing about how they celebrated holidays on the Arno. For Halloween, this generally meant a large courtyard lit up with towering holograms of jack-o-lanterns, dancing skeletons, and witches flying about on brooms. Part of the recreation area would get transformed into a haunted house, although Oliver said his parents wouldn’t allow him to go until he was much older. My lighthearted teasing on the subject changed “much older” to “next year” in an effort to prove Oliver wasn’t, in fact, a scaredy-cat.

We swapped stories for an hour or so before my parents returned from lunch. Uncle Wyatt and Aunt Kate were called over by Oliver, and the rest of the visit was all of us together before my family needed to head home.

“Connie’s gonna read the comic you said she’d like,” Oliver said as the adults were saying their goodbyes. “I’ll let you know in the email how she likes it.”

“You should read it, too!” I said. “I’m telling you, it’s good!”

Oliver’s face scrunched up, “I don’t want to read about mermaids kissing.”

“It’s not _just_ about mermaids kissing!” I said, tossing up my hands. “There’s magic and monsters and stuff!”

“What _in the galaxy_ do you let her read?” my uncle Wyatt said, butting into the conversation.

“Almost anything she wants, as long as she’s not glued to games,” my mom said with a laugh. “Say goodbye, honey.”

“Bye, Uncle Wyatt!” I said, waving. “Bye, Aunt Kate! Merry Christmas!”

“You too, Ellie Bean!” Uncle Wyatt said. “See you in a few months! Make sure to follow your mom’s example, and don’t give her any more trouble than what she gave your grandma!”

“Don’t wish that upon me,” my mom mumbled.

“Bye, Ellie!” Aunt Kate said, beaming. “Merry Chris–”

Aunt Kate was blocked out as Oliver took up the screen.

“Merry Christmas!” Oliver shouted. “Bye, Dino Girl!”

“Bye, _Ollie,”_ I said, using the nickname I’d picked up from my mom.

Oliver rolled his eyes as I snickered.

* * *

Qiana’s dad opened the door before I’d even made it down the driveway. He shot me the sort of smile adults make when everything is far from being OK but they want to make it seem like it is. His eyes still conveyed the sort of gentle expression beneath his bushy brows which reminded me of the serene countryside from when I went on vacation earlier that summer. That, and the fact that I thought Mr. Jacobs bore a resemblance to the shaggy ponies which ambled up to the fence to eat apples out of your hand.

“Hello there, Ellie,” Mr. Jacobs said, his expression growing more genuine as I reached the porch. Qiana and her dad sort of reminded me of my mother and I; our physical similarities only became apparent when we smiled. For my mom and me it was the laugh lines. For Qiana and her dad, it was the gap in their front teeth. Qiana had mentioned her displeasure over the fact her front teeth came back in like that. I told her it was cute, but she didn’t think so.

“Would you like a snack?” Mr. Jacobs offered. He looked somewhere over my head as the faint glow of text appeared on the screen of his net gear glasses. He was probably sending a message to my parents letting them know I made it to his home alright.

“I’m OK,” I said. The home Qiana and her dad lived in was an old-fashioned model, with hardwood floors and walls you had to paint if you ever wanted to change the color. My dad said those kinds of homes were expensive since there weren’t a lot around like that anymore. I guess that made sense, but I still found it kind of weird when the floor would creak with every step I took; I worried that I’d fall right through to the basement. It was distracting enough to leave me staring at my feet as I stepped down the hallway and started up the stairs. I was almost halfway to the second landing when a voice popped into my head which sounded nothing short of a perfect imitation of my mother.

“Thank you for inviting me to your home!” I said, spinning on my heel. My gratitude seemed to go unnoticed as Mr. Jacobs only grimaced while I regained my balance on the steps. “And thank you for the offer of a snack! I already had lunch before I came over, though. It was a ham and cheese sandwich with vinegar chips. I brought some extra chips for Qiana since they’re her favorite. I’ll make sure to clean up the crumbs so there won’t be mice! My dad said houses like this can get mice.”

Mr. Jacobs blinked owlishly at me for a moment. Like his daughter, they both seemed to need an instant taking me in before knowing what to say. “That’s … that’s fine, Ellie,” he said. “Don’t worry about that. We haven’t had mice since … eh … I’ll tell you girls about it later. Go ahead and see Qiana up in her room. Just let me know if you two need anything.”

“I will! Thank you, Mr. Jacobs!”

The voice in my head now satisfied, I gave Mr. Jacobs a wave before finally reaching the second landing. Qiana’s room was the second one on the right, but when I pushed open the door to take in the shades of purple and blown-glass planets hanging from the ceiling, I found that the room was unoccupied. My eyes roved over the neatly made bed, rows of origami cranes on the small desk, and the controller sitting on the floor before a gaming center. The controller hadn’t been plugged in, which made me think Qiana had overlooked the task. Something uncomfortable squirmed in my gut before I turned and looked down the hall. The door all the way at the end was open just a hair, so I headed in.

It wasn’t like Qiana was trying to hide. She was front-and-center in the sea of sleek grey boxes piled around her. The stacks looked like miniature skyscrapers, and Qiana was a giant who’d grown tired of trying to climb up and terrorize the citizens of the tiny metropolis. Instead, she picked at the plush green carpet and pulled out strings one-by-one. She didn’t bother looking up as I stepped into the room.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” Qiana said, keeping her gaze averted.

“You want some vinegar chips?” I plopped down across from her, swinging my purple backpack into my lap.

“I’m good.”

Despite this claim, the bag of chips was produced and set down to the side. I gave it a nudge until the bag bumped against Qiana’s toes. My knees were pulled up to my chest, and I fought the urge to fidget as Qiana continued to pick at the carpet.

“Why’re you here?” Qiana asked. Something bitter laced her voice which made me look away.

“I’m sorry.”

The deep green string between Qiana’s fingers broke free from the carpet with a ‘snap.’

“Go home,” she said, voice devoid of emotion.

My face scrunched up. I bit my lip in an attempt not to cry. “I was just trying to fix it,” I said, my voice soft.

“You’re bad at fixing things,” Qiana said. She was never one to pull her punches; this was the first time I didn’t admire her for the quality.

“Now Cindy _and_ Yuri hate me,” she continued, twisting the little green string around her finger. We were both using the action as an excuse not to meet each other’s gaze. “Why did you have to say anything?”

“But Cindy was mad cuz she thought you liked Yuri!” I said, my eyes snapping up. Qiana met my stare, and I hesitated from the withering glare for a moment before plowing on. “I just told her you thought Yuri was annoying sometimes, so you _couldn’t_ like him!”

“And now Yuri hates me!” Qiana said. Her voice cracked, and a red hue touched the tip of her nose. “Why did you have to say that?!”

“I was just telling the truth!”

“You weren’t supposed to tell other people that!” Qiana said. “You’re not supposed to tell other people things I only tell you! And now everyone knows everything I said about them because you told them!”

“What?” I said, using my wrist to wipe away the dampness suddenly trailing down my cheek. “I didn’t say anything! I just said the thing about Yuri, and that’s it!”

“Yeah, right,” Qiana said, looking away. Her bangs fell over her eyes, hiding her expression. “Sam and Cindy said you didn’t want me to sit at the table with you guys anymore.”

I jumped to my feet. Qiana flinched from the sound of my foot slamming down on the bag of chips with a loud crunch.

“THAT’S A LIE!”

Qiana recoiled as I gripped her shoulders. A blush rose up her cheeks when my stern expression filled her vision.

“You’re my best friend,” I said. “There’s no way I’d be OK with you eating lunch somewhere else!”

I could feel the tension leave Qiana’s shoulders. “Really?” she asked.

“Really! And if Sam and Cindy want to be that way, then _they_ can eat lunch somewhere else! You didn’t even do anything! Cindy’s the one who’s got a crush on a boy who likes you instead!”

Qiana’s brow furrowed, “Yuri _likes_ me?”

“Duh,” I said. My hands dropped to my lap as I took a seat. I used my heel to push aside the now flattened bag of chips. “I thought you knew that.”

“No.” Qiana pulled her knees up to her chest. “And I don’t like him back. Yuri talks about soccer too much; it’s annoying.”

“That’s what _I_ said!”

“But you didn’t have to tell him that,” Qiana said, her expression hardening. The look had the desired effect.

“I messed up,” I said, dropping my head. “I thought it would get Cindy to leave you alone. Then someone must’ve told Yuri … I’m such a jerk.”

“Yeah, a little bit,” Qiana said. The look she was giving me had softened a bit when I raised my head. “But you’ll still be my friend?” she asked.

There was a turbulence in my chest. It felt close to bursting; from good or bad emotions, I didn’t know. I just knew I needed to get them out before I exploded.

“Always!” I said. “I’ll be your friend forever, so don’t be stupid and think we’re not friends anymore! You’re the smartest person I know, so you’ve got no excuse acting stupid!”

Qiana rapidly blinked a few times. Her expression morphed into a coy grin, _“You’re_ stupid.”

“I know!” I said, patting my chest. “I’ve got potatoes for brains!”

Qiana laughed. I joined in, and we laughed until we were having trouble catching our breath. It was a nice feeling.

When we calmed ourselves, I took a moment to look around the room. “Why’re you in your mom’s room, anyway?”

There was a crinkling sound as Qiana opened the bag of chips. She pulled out a cluster of tiny, jagged pieces before shrugging. “It’s quiet,” she said. “I can go in here and Daddy won’t come in.”

“That’s weird.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Qiana said. She tilted her head back to sprinkle the chips in her mouth.

I watched Qiana for a moment before laying down and getting comfortable on my stomach. The carpet was super soft; probably because it didn’t get a lot of foot traffic. “Mom and Dad said I’m not supposed to ask you about your mom,” I said. “I told them you already told me about her, but they still said not to talk about it.”

“I don’t mind,” Qiana said. She set the chips aside. There was a moment of repositioning before Qiana laid on her back and gazed up at the ceiling. She spread her arms and legs out as if readying herself to make a snow angel. “But you’re breaking a promise; told you, you’re bad at fixing things.”

_“Qiana,”_ I said, drawing out the last syllable. “Just because you’re better at everything doesn’t mean I’m _bad_ at everything.”

“It kinda does.”

“You’re so mean.” My grin met Qiana’s when she glanced in my direction.

“You’re better than I am at talking to people,” Qiana said. “They like you more.”

“Pfft.” I sat up to lean my head in my hand. “Everyone’s mad at me now, so I don’t think so. I’d rather be brainy like you so then I wouldn’t say the dumb stuff that pops into my mind all the time.”

“I’m not that smart,” Qiana said. “My mom had won first place in a regional science fair when she was in third grade. I haven’t done that.”

“So?”

“I think if I get to being as smart as Mommy was,” Qiana said, sliding her hands along the carpet, “then maybe Daddy will stop being sad.”

The uncomfortable feeling in my stomach returned. I pushed it away as I got to my knees. “Your dad is crazy if he’s sad having you around. I wish you were around all the time, cuz then my house would be _way_ less boring.”

Qiana sat up. Strands of long, black hair lifted up around her face like a halo from the resulting static. “I can ask my dad if I can come over more often,” she said. “If you want.”

“Please!” I said, grabbing her by the arm. “Please, please, please! Mom still won’t let me use net gear glasses more than an hour a day, and Dad is _so_ bad at hopsquare it _hurts.”_

My favorite type of smile graced Qiana’s features; it was the one where she forgot to be self-conscious about the gap in her teeth and allowed her entire face to light up. Any of the lingering discomfort in my stomach dissipated in an instant. It was now my turn to blush, and I looked around for a distraction.

“So … you wanna go through the clothes again?” I asked, looking at the boxes over Qiana’s shoulder. “Mom taught me how to do the braid that goes up into a bun. If you wore that sparkly purple dress from last time, and I did your hair, you’d look like princess Mariella from Prancing Ponies!”

“OK,” Qiana said. She got to her feet, wiping chip dust on her overalls. “But I don’t even watch that. Prancing Ponies isn’t as fun as Puffy Pets; dunno why they even gave Starshine her own show.”

“Because she’s funny and goes on _way_ more fantastical adventures than the others,” I said.

Although Qiana may not have been a fan of Starshine pony and her fanciful escapades, she still opened up boxes in search of the one holding her mom’s old formal wear. Jumping in to give her a hand, I came across a box of jewelry. As if waking them from a long slumber, the LEDs in the fake gemstones flashed to life when the lid was lifted away. My fingertips brushed over a rainbow of bangles, necklaces, and earrings; I felt a little like an explorer who’d discovered a lost chest of pirate treasure.

My eyes tracked to a particular piece, and I picked up a necklace sporting tiny flashing lights amid chunky cuts of deep blue glass, like the jeweler had figured out how to shatter the night sky and string it on a silver chain. I imaged the type of grown up who would wear such a thing – someone who could pull off the sort of elegance needed to wear a cluster of stars around their neck and not be outdone. The picture in my head looked a lot like Qiana, but maybe a bit older and with a distant look on her face. Qiana’s mom always appeared aloof when I tried to imagine her. Perhaps anyone would seem that way when no one talked about you much.

I stared at the necklace long enough for Qiana to notice. I flinched, and tossed the necklace back onto the pile before reaching for another box.

“You just haven’t gotten to the dark sphere arc of Prancing Ponies, yet,” I said, feeling embarrassed for a reason I couldn’t explain. “That’s when things get serious. Starshine has to harness the power of the crystal of camaraderie to vanquish the kingdom’s enemies from the Swamp of Indifference …”

* * *

_‘Can you keep a secret?’_

The sentence had been burning a hole in the back of my mind of weeks. I thought about it when I was taking notes in class; when I was brushing my teeth; when Qiana was helping me with my English homework.

_‘Can you keep a secret?’_

It was also a bit of an insult I even had to be asked. I could keep a secret. Sort of. I never _meant_ not to. Sometimes things just came out … but never on purpose.

And now I had to carry _this_ around until Arno Day. I had to tell my mom nothing was wrong when I was silent at dinner. I had to tell my dad nothing was wrong when I wouldn’t stop fidgeting during the car ride to the FCP. I had to ask the security lady, Ms. Saito, to repeat her question when she asked how I was doing in school while I made my way through the security checkpoints. There was absolutely _no way_ I could stay focused during the first half of our family visit while Uncle Wyatt and Aunt Kate went on about their jobs and the new recreation park recently installed on the Arno. This was a feat, since normally I’d have been all over news about a three-story virtual laser tag course and zero-gravity racquetball.

But the last sentence in the email I received from Oliver over three weeks ago trumped everything else. It caused me to keep my eyes fixed firmly on the array of buttons on the control panel in fear of my aunt Kate seeing right through me. I knew locking eyes would lead to a – _“Oh dear. It’s Oliver, isn’t it? What did he say? A secret? Oh my.”_

Alright, that may have been an exaggeration. Aunt Kate was oddly attuned to the people around her, though. I liked her a lot, but man was I happy she wasn’t my mom. I would never be able to get away with _anything_.

“I think it’s about time for lunch!” Uncle Wyatt finally said, putting an arm around Aunt Kate. The practice of the adults stepping away for an extended lunch break was a routine which had been in place for a few years now. It gave Oliver and I a chance to speak more candidly, and on occasion we’d return the favor when Oliver would go to his room to color and I’d take a walk around the FCP with Qiana and her dad. This wasn’t often, and looking back it seemed like our parents used the time mostly to dish over juicy workplace drama and the more annoying habits Oliver and I were picking up in our blossoming adolescence. Although by “parents” I meant my mom and Uncle Wyatt, who were generally the chattier of the bunch, while Aunt Kate and my dad would only chime in when asked to validate their spouse. I’d listened in on a few of these “adult” conversations, thinking I’d hear something good, only to be left bored out of my mind concerning incorrectly filed repair requests and someone named Suzanne “seeing other people” than her husband (which left me pretty confused, at the time, about why anyone would care who Suzanne was looking at).

“Now be on your best behavior,” my mom said as she and my dad stepped into the hallway. “Remember everything in here is _very_ expensive.”

_“Mom,”_ I said, leaning over the back of the large desk chair. “I know, OK?”

“She mentions it because your mom’s still paying for the damage from the control panel she ruined,” Uncle Wyatt said. He shot us a wink before he and Aunt Kate walked off screen. There was the sound of a sigh, and my parents disappeared behind the sliding doors.

“What’s the secret?!” I said, spinning about in my chair.

“Shh!”

Oliver shushed me with a finger over his lips. He shot me a glare before looking over his shoulder.

I frowned, “But you said–”

“SHH!”

“WHAT?!”

“Shut up!” Oliver said, speaking in a whisper. “My mom and dad might still be able to hear!”

“You can’t tell me to shut up!” I said, crossing my arms. “Uncle Wyatt gets mad when you say that.”

_“Ellie,”_ Oliver said, his voice coming out in a whine. His tone urged me to offer some leniency, and I became a perfect imitation of my mother as I let out a huff. We sat in silence for a moment before Oliver closed his eyes with a sigh.

“It’s not a big deal,” Oliver finally said. “It’s kinda dumb.”

I was a hair's-width away from crawling over the control panel as I leaned in. “Is it that you like Riley?” I asked.

“What?!” Oliver said, scrunching up his nose. “No! I don’t! That’s not it!”

My shoulders slumped at the lack of juicy gossip; I really was my mother’s child.

“I just …” Oliver shifted in his seat, tugging at the hem of his white shirt with an inverted triangle across the front. “Connie said something about her dad saying we’re going to reach the Artifact soon.”

The Artifact. ‘ _The’_ Artifact. The mysterious alien object floating in deep space that Oliver and his parents were hurtling toward as we spoke. I never really thought about it much, which was funny considering that was literally the entire reason the Arno existed in the first place. Without the Artifact, my cousin may’ve never been born, which was a weird thing to think about.

“Connie said after we reach the Artifact,” Oliver said, lowering his eyes, “the Arno may just keep going on into deep space. If that happens, we may get out of range for regular Earth communications.”

My stomach dropped. I shook my head, curly hair bouncing over my shoulders. “You can’t!”

“I don’t want to!” Oliver said. His grey eyes reflected my alarm. “But that’s what she said! She said the captain and bridge crew are the only ones who really need to send messages, anyway.”

“That’s not true!”

“I know!” Oliver said. We were working ourselves into a frenzy, feeding off each other’s panic. “And Riley and I told her about you guys, but she said … she said you guys weren’t really family because we’re not that closely related. She said it didn’t count.”

“Connie can go eat boogers!” I said, nostrils flaring. “Just cuz _her_ family on Earth doesn’t care, doesn’t mean you can’t talk to us anymore!”

Any mention of the word “boogers” normally sent Oliver into a fit of giggles. In this case, he was too riled up to dwell on the fact.

“But if that might happen … I’ll become the captain,” Oliver said, indicating himself with his thumb. “If I become the captain, then I could talk to you guys whenever I want. Then I wouldn’t let anyone try to change the communication schedule! I would … I would make it better! I would change it so we could talk whenever!”

I watched Oliver, eyes wide. My movements were slow as I sat back in my seat, “Would they really let _you_ be the captain?”

Oliver furrowed his brow, “I could be Captain.”

“But you don’t even like when it’s your turn to be the teacher’s helper,” I said. “Like, you said no one listens when you ask them to turn in papers, or clean up.”

Oliver prickled, “That’s different!”

“I dunno,” I said with a shrug. “Maybe you should get Riley to try to be Captain. You said she can talk real loud.”

The irritated look on Oliver’s face deepened, “That’s not the point, Ellie! I just don’t want to not talk to you anymore! I think I would miss that a lot!”

Oliver appeared embarrassed over the confession. We were getting to the age at which speaking candidly was becoming a faux pas. As it was, though, we were getting there together.

“I would miss that a lot, too,” I said. A wide grin adorned my face in an attempt to get Oliver to smile. He did, but something melancholy still swam beneath the surface. I puffed out my cheeks, then poked them down as a farting noise escaped my flapping lips.

“You spit on the screen!” Oliver said, bursting into laughter. “Eww! Stop!”

“Make me!” I said. I blew another raspberry, getting as close to the microphone as I could.

“Take this!” Oliver said. He lifted his shirt to stick a hand under his armpit.

‘Fwip! Fwip! Fwip!’

I did my best impression of the lawnmower bots which circled my neighborhood as I attempted to blow a long raspberry to drown out the sound of Oliver’s armpit farts. It was hard to admit, but the practice he told me he’d been putting in was paying off as it looked like he was finally going to be able to outpace me. I never thought that between the two of us, I’d be the least annoying. This sparked a feeling of pride.

_“Eloise!”_

Oliver froze with his hand still up his shirt. I looked over my shoulder, my knee up on the control panel and my tongue sticking out of my mouth.

“Please get down, Xuxu,” Dad said, seeming more confused than angry. My mom was standing at his side, and by the look on her face, had the angry part covered.

I scrambled back into my seat. My mouth stretched into a thin line as I watched my dad tut and pull a napkin from the paper bag he was carrying and wipe down the camera lens.

“Ollie, honey,” my mom said, her voice taking on a kinder tone. “Can you send a message to your parents and let them know we’re back?”

Oliver was off screen in a blur of white. He may not have been the instigator to the ridiculous scene taking place a moment before, but he was certainly an accomplice.

“That was a short lunch,” I said, talking to my shoes.

“Your aunt and uncle told us to make it quick today,” Mom said. She seated herself next to me, and unconsciously reached out to smooth down my hair. “They said they had a surprise.”

“A surprise?” I said, looking up. “What is it?”

“I think if we knew, that would defeat the purpose of it being a surprise,” Mom said. She smiled, giving me a playful poke on the cheek.

After Dad was finished wiping down the control panel, he handed me a wrap from the FCP cafeteria. I began to eat as an excuse to not look my parents in the eye, hoping that if I was unobtrusive enough, the memory of me slobbering over the control panel would be forgotten.

“So,” Dad said, glancing at the screen as Oliver returned. “What were you kids up to?”

_Aw, fudge._

Oliver looked about as mortified as I felt. Perhaps less so, since whatever face I was making caused him to snort. I made a choking sound as I held in a laugh. My hand slapped over my mouth in an attempt to keep bits of turkey and cheese from flying free.

“You two are just a couple of little squirrels, huh?” Mom said, tickling my side. She smiled as I let out a squeak.

“I called Mom, and she said they’d be back in a minute, Aunt Poppy,” Oliver said. Hands wrung in his lap as his smile diminished. “Aunt Poppy?”

“Yes, honey?” my mom said, giving me one last little poke before pulling away.

“Do you think … do you think the FCP won’t let us talk anymore when we reach the Artifact?”

My mom never had much of a poker face, and her confusion clearly showed, “Now why in the galaxy would you think that, Ollie? If anything, they’re going to pour as many resources into communications as they can.”

Oliver made a relieved sound. “So, we can still talk?”

“Yeah! Keeping an open communications channel with Earth has always been paramount! The Arno’s set to settle in a suitable system; there’re a few terraforming options that’s going to be put to a vote after the Artifact extraction. At the very least, you guys will be stationary for long enough that it’ll be viable to set up a more robust satellite comm center in the nearby asteroid cluster. There’s a great paper that was published by Dr. Lenard Jamil that–”

“Poppy, love,” my dad said, reaching over me to pat Mom’s shoulder. “Oliver isn’t going to read Dr. Jamil’s dissertation.”

“Well of course he isn’t going to _read_ it,” Mom said. “I was just saying that it goes in great depth about the proposed layout of the comm center.”

“The short answer,” Dad said, looking to the screen. “Is that we’ll be around, Oliver, so don’t worry.”

Oliver wiggled in his seat, “Thanks, Uncle Raul.”

“Anytime, kiddo.”

The whoosh of a door heralded the sound of my aunt and uncle returning. I watched Oliver turn in his seat. He looked puzzled, and the reason behind it became apparent when his parents stepped into frame. They stood behind Oliver, wearing a matching pair of baggy, purple zip-up jackets.

“Do some light shopping while you were out?” my mom said, noting the outfits which were certainly different than what my aunt and uncle been wearing before lunch.

“Can’t have a surprise without some pizazz,” Uncle Wyatt said. He unzipped his hoodie, revealing a white shirt with bold lettering on the front.

‘WE’RE

HAVING’

We regarded my uncle with slack-jawed expressions. Our eyes wandered to Aunt Kate as she unzipped her own jacket.

‘A

BABY!’

There was a beat of silence as we stared. My mom quickly rectified this fact.

“ARE YOU SHITTING ME?!”

“Oh, meu Deus!” Dad said, flinching. “Language, Poppy!”

“I’M SORRY!” Mom yelled, her eyes growing wet. She hopped to her feet, flapping her hands. “Are you guys really?! Oh, my God! Really?!”

“Yup!” Uncle Wyatt said, jubilant. “The Binkley’s gave us … ah, we’ll talk about that later.”

“We had the ultrasound yesterday,” Aunt Kate said, lifting up a tablet to take up the screen. She tapped the surface, a black-and-white picture of what I could only describe as an indiscernible blob popping up. “We’re having a little boy!”

“Oh!”

My mom was openly crying now. She was squeezed around the shoulders by my dad, who’d decided to step in for emotional support.

“I’m going to have a brother?” Oliver said, regarding his parents in awe as the picture of the ultrasound was pulled away.

“You sure are, buddy,” Uncle Wyatt said, ruffling Oliver’s hair. “So, you’re going to have to be a good big brother, and teach him everything you know, hmm?”

“Like how to do armpit farts,” I said, stating the thing I knew Oliver was best at.

“Oh, no,” Uncle Wyatt said. “The baby’s only going to learn that from a great master.”

To my aunt’s dismay, Uncle Wyatt proceeded to demonstrate who had taught Oliver the sacred and ancient art of armpit farts in the first place.


	3. Chapter 3

“Q-Qiana!”

“Um … hi.”

I had struck the moment Qiana stepped foot into my bedroom. She stood frozen in place, not hugging me back as I squeezed her around the shoulders. A moment of silence passed as I sobbed uncontrollably. Qiana’s patience seemed to wear out when I started getting snot on her hoodie.

“Ellie, that’s gross.”

“Qiana!” I said again, howling. “He was going to get married! He was going to see the world! He was three days away from retirement! And now he’s … now he’s … now he’s _dead!”_

I could feel the sigh in Qiana’s chest, “It was a goldfish.”

“His name was _Ferdinand,”_ I said, my face still buried in grey material. A small part of me felt I may’ve been blowing the death of a goldfish a little out of proportion, but Ferdinand had been _my_ goldfish. My goldfish, which only made it three weeks before going belly up. I’d already made plans concerning where I was going to release him when he’d inevitably grow to the size of the neighbor’s corgi. Ferdinand was going to be set free into the river behind the school, and there I would visit him and his new wife, Lucille, and their kids Reginald and Ruby.

“P-poor,” I said, fighting for air against the wet material. “Poor Lucille.”

“What?” Qiana said. When I only continued to cry, she gave my back a pat. “You need a hug?”

I nodded fervently. Unlike Sam or Cindy, who used to offer hugs at any sign of distress, Qiana needed a little prompting. In her defense, she was getting much better; the last time I’d given her a hug without warning she’d simply pushed me off. The only person I’d ever seen Qiana hug without hesitation was her dad. It turned out there was a small group of people who were given a “pass” for Qiana’s affections. I had no shortage of pride for being on said list (even if it had taken over a year to get there).

“Oof!”

Qiana squeezed me back with all her might. We rocked side-to-side until I let out a wet cough.

“You OK?” Qiana said, releasing her grip.

“Yeah.” I wiped my face with the back of my wrist. “Sorry.”

“It’s OK,” Qiana said. She gazed around my room. Her eyes seemed to linger on my shelf, which now sported a fish tank lacking any purpose. “Did you already bury him?”

“At sea,” I said, wiping away the last bit of snot with the back of my sleeve. By “at sea,” I meant the toilet, which is what Mom and Dad had called it as we’d solemnly watched the little orange-and-white carcass shoot out of sight with a flush.

Qiana nodded. She shrugged off her backpack, and unzipped the largest pocket. What she pulled out was the last thing I would’ve expected.

“Flowers?”

“For the service,” Qiana replied. She took the small bundle of white daisies in her grip and divided it into two clumps. I was handed a wilting bouquet which I regarded in amazement.

“Ferdinand was a fish,” Qiana said, wasting no time on brevity. “I met him a few times; he seemed nice. I fed him once and he looked really happy to eat all the flakes. Ellie?”

Qiana watched me with a neutral expression until I flinched. “Uh …”

My eyes drifted to the flowers. I imagined Qiana squatting down to pick them from between the clusters of small trees lining the neighborhood sidewalks. We’d done it once before when I had the idea of braiding flowers into our hair. Mrs. Ronaltz had stepped onto her porch and snapped at us to quit “defaming the foliage” when we’d done so. The two of us had scuttled away with tears in our eyes out of fear of Mrs. Ronaltz making good on her threat to notify our parents of vandalism. That was a year ago, and we hadn’t touched the flowers since.

Not until now, when Qiana had done it for _me._

“Ferdinand,” I said, running a finger over the delicate white petals. “Ferdinand was kind of a dumb name.”

“A little.”

I couldn’t help the smile tugging on my cheeks. I grabbed Qiana’s hand and drug her to the middle of the room. With a little hop, we both sunk into the poofy pink comforter on my bed. “He also thought his name was dumb,” I said, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. “He thought it was _so_ dumb, he faked his own death so he could escape and go by a new name.”

Qiana was busying herself by weaving a crown out of the flowers. Her braiding skills were nowhere near as good as my own, but she made a commendable effort. “I don’t think fish are that smart,” she said.

“But Ferdinand wasn’t a fish,” I said. “He was the fairy prince. And he had to go back to his kingdom to help his family fight the Warnapals.”

Qiana’s hands stilled. She wrinkled her nose in thought, “Are those the aliens your cousin draws?”

“Yup!”

“Those aren’t real – neither are fairies.”

“Are too!” I said, leaping up. I bounced around the sheets, daisies falling free from my grasp to be squashed underfoot. “And the Warnapals are going to destroy the fairy kingdom unless Ferdinand goes to stop them!”

“You said his name wasn’t Ferdinand,” Qiana said. She set down the half-formed flower crown so she could still my hopping with a hand around my wrist. In one smooth motion Qiana yanked me down and slid her net gear glasses on my nose.

“Here – I got you some new fish in case you missed yours.”

My vision was filled with holographic fish floating lazily around my room. They ranged from the size of the tip of my finger to as large as my bed, scales shining in silvers and greens. Some had frilly fins that flowed about like ethereal bridal trains. My jaw dropped, which Qiana seemed to find amusing.

“Where’d you download this?” I asked. My head craned back as a hammerhead shark swam over the bed and through the wall.

“I just used the building tool for environments,” Qiana said. “They had a couple preprogrammed fish, and I modified that to make some of the other types.”

“You’re so cool,” I said, flopping onto my back. “Way cooler than stupid Ferdinand who couldn’t tell me he needed to go; I would’ve understood.”

Qiana laid down beside me. The flower crown she’d been working on turned out more like a tangled clump, and she placed it over my lip like a mustache. She laughed as I yelped and blew it off my face. The resulting glare shot her way only made her laugh harder.

“You’re silly, Ellie.”

I rolled my eyes, letting Qiana have fun at my expense. She certainly deserved it.

“Thanks for coming over,” I said. My hand reached out to drift through a phantom jellyfish. It split into two smaller jellyfish that danced and spiraled away. I wondered how long Qiana had spent programming the animation.

“You’re welcome,” Qiana said. Her laughter had died down, and she now regarded my ceiling with a content expression. “I wasn’t doing anything else.”

The fish swimming before my eyes countered this statement, since there was a good chance Qiana had been busy ever since I sent her the news about Ferdinand late yesterday afternoon.

“I’m feeling much better,” I said, sitting up. Bits of smooshed daisies stuck out every which-way in my curls. “What should we do now?”

Qiana’s expression turned contemplative. There was a shift to her features, and I could tell whatever she decided made her feel bashful.

“My dad taught me how to make paper dolls,” she said. Real paper was a bit of a rare commodity, but the speckled alternative product made from recycled pulp and various plastics was nearly as good if you didn’t need it for anything fancy. We had plenty of that, but my parents kept their real paper locked in my dad’s office. This didn’t mean I wouldn’t get into it for the occasional project I felt required a touch of class. This was one such time.

“Sounds fun,” I said, holding out my hand. It was accepted with a grin, and the two of us let out quiet giggles as we scurried from my room.

* * *

My dad settled the FCP-issued net gear glasses on my nose. They were bulkier than what I was used to, and my head tilted to the side for a moment before I made a correction. I blinked twice, the menu popping open and filling my vision with scrolling text and blinking apps.

“Hold still, honey,” Mom said. She was clipping the harness around my torso, which would hold me fast to the VR treadmill. After a few clicks, I was secured into the device. I tested it out by doing a few hops, feeling the weight of the plastic and listening to the ‘woosh’ of the machine as it calibrated.

“You ready?” Uncle Wyatt said. He was a little hard to make out on the large screen behind all the scrolling text, but I nodded. There was a flash of white light, and the communications room around me disappeared. I blinked a few times as I took in a room I’d come to find familiar, although generally from a much different angle.

 _“Please wait; system calibration in process,”_ the pleasant voice of the system AI chimed. I stood frozen, my eyes roaming about as I appeared to shrink. The home my Uncle Wyatt and his family lived in was larger than I’d imagined, but perhaps all I had ever imagined before was the yellow wall with the picture frames. There was an open-plan kitchen with gleaming appliances, and a large Christmas tree in the corner of the living room sparkling in a cheery fashion. I recognized it as the same model we had at home, and noted it was even programed to be a bubblegum pink this year, just like ours. I was sure it would sing “Oh Christmas Tree” if I asked.

There was a click, a whirr, and the shrinking stopped.

 _“Calibration complete. Say ‘tutorial’ to begin_ _–”_

“No, no, no, you got it,” Uncle Wyatt’s voice said, drowning out the AI. “It’ll be just like using the motion sensor for your dad’s drone.”

I flinched as Uncle Wyatt appeared in my vision. My jaw dropped; it was like he was actually standing right in front of me. He crouched down to my level and placed a hand on the comm bot. The harness reacted by putting light pressure on my shoulder.

“Woah.” I lifted my arms. There was a short delay, but eventually the robot mirrored my movements. It didn’t have fingers, but one of the little claws opened as I lifted my hand up. The claw poked Uncle Wyatt in the cheek, then drug along his face until reaching his ear. He kept a pleasant smile aside from a wince when the claw closed on his white hair.

“Good job, Ellie Bean!” Uncle Wyatt said, lifting the arm away from his face in a delicate fashion. “I’m glad to see the prototype is responding. Everything working OK on your end?”

“I think so,” I said. The little robot arms jerked up and down. “There’s some lag, though.”

“There’re a couple factors at play, there,” Uncle Wyatt said, giving the robot another pat on the shoulder before straightening up. “One of which is that this little guy hasn’t been outfitted with the best transponder. The cost benefit on this particular test model had to do with what the guys in R&D decided was …” Uncle Wyatt trailed off, blinking down at me. “For not having a face, I can already tell I’m losing you.”

I shrugged. This caused Uncle Wyatt to break into a wide smile.

“Can you also see the picture OK?” Uncle Wyatt asked. “Poppy? Raul?”

“Just fine,” Mom’s voice said. It was odd, since I could simultaneously hear her voice in my ear and blaring from the speaker inlaid on the robot’s chest. The sensation was a bit disorienting.

“Alright,” Uncle Wyatt said. “Right this way, folks.” He waved me to follow as he walked past the kitchen and into a hallway. The robot jerked forward as I moved my feet along the treadmill. We walked (or rolled, in my instance) along the sleek floor until Uncle Wyatt pushed open a door on the left. He motioned for me to enter.

The room must’ve been my aunt and uncle’s, since the bed most certainly wasn’t of the bunkbed variety, and the walls were barren of pictures of Wargals. I’d never personally seen Oliver’s room, but knew enough from second-hand knowledge to make this deduction.

Despite there being a rather large bed and a pair of armchairs in the corner, my aunt Kate and Oliver were sitting crossed-legged on the floor. There was a bundle in my aunt’s arms, and she’d been speaking in low tones as I rolled in. The conversation was cut short as Oliver looked up. He scrambled to his feet, and a few quick strides left him standing before me. There was a spark of satisfaction that I was an inch or so taller than he was.

“Ellie?” Oliver asked.

“No,” I said, putting up my pincers. “Dino Girl-Bot.”

Oliver laughed. He grabbed me by the arm and guided me to the center of the room. We came to a stop when we reached Aunt Kate.

“This is Caleb!” Oliver said, bouncing on his heels. “So far, he doesn’t do much other than sleep, but I think he likes the lights from the Christmas tree. Mom and Dad said we can keep it up extra-long this year so he gets to look at it more.”

“Careful,” Aunt Kate said, handing the baby to Oliver. “There you go.”

“Oh, hello baby!” my mom’s voice chimed. My parents cooed over the tiny figure in Oliver’s arms. The baby had a streak of brown hair, and a face scrunched up as if sleeping required an extreme act of concentration. Caleb shifted in his slumber, sticking a fist in his mouth.

“He looks–”

_Like a wrinkly old man._

I decided not to finish that thought.

“He’s cute.”

“Wanna hold him?” Oliver said, offering the baby up. All four adults present made a sound like that wasn’t the best idea.

“I can hold him!” I said, getting defensive. I didn’t really _want_ to hold the baby that much, but now that everyone thought I couldn’t, I was invested.

Aunt Kate hummed. “Alright,” she said, gently directing me how to hold up my arms. “Just be very still. I’ll be right here, but don’t make any sudden movements.”

“Kate, honey,” Mom said. “It’s perfectly fine if she doesn’t hold him.”

“How often does anyone get an opportunity like this?” Aunt Kate said. She shifted the baby from Oliver’s arms to my own. There were no sensors attached to my arms or legs, so it was more like I was miming holding a baby instead of the real thing. I looked down at Caleb’s face. His eyes opened marginally, and his small fist brushed against his ruddy nose. OK, he was actually kinda cute.

“Ellie gets to hold her cousin in her arms from the other side of the galaxy,” Aunt Kate said. She ran her fingers over the thin hair along the crown of Caleb’s head. “I marvel every day at how we’re still able to be so connected. No matter how much distance is between us, we can still find each other.”

After another moment of baby admiration, the conversation drifted to sleep schedules and feedings and diaper changes. Aunt Kate took Caleb from my arms, and the adults chatted while Oliver occasionally piped up to mention helping give Caleb a bath or rocking him to sleep.

 _‘He’s my lucky clover,’_ Oliver’s last email had said. The look on his face conveyed he was nothing less than over the moon with his new little brother. There was a pang of jealousy, since I knew within minutes I’d been dethroned as the favorite in Oliver’s eyes. Perhaps it was the “only child syndrome” in me, but I’d rather liked thinking Oliver and I shared a special bond as the only kids in our family.

When Caleb started to fuss, Aunt Kate informed us it was his lunch time, and we were shown out of the room. Oliver didn’t skip a beat in guiding the robot to another room down the hall.

“Welcome to Castle Oliver!” he said, waving his arms in a grandiose fashion.

The state of his room made me feel a lot better about my own. The harness tilting me side-to-side let me know the little robot was rolling over a myriad of markers, building blocks, and the Power Man figure Oliver had given up on building halfway through. There was a computer on a desk underneath the bunk bed, but one would have to travel through a canopy of brightly-colored strings hanging from the bedframe to get to the seat. Almost every inch of the deep blue walls around us were covered with one drawing or another.

“Wow, kiddo,” Dad said. “Your room is very … imaginative.”

“It’s a work in progress,” Uncle Wyatt said, leaning against the doorframe. “It’ll get cleared up a bit once Caleb’s a little older and the boys can share the room. Until then, I’m allowing Oliver to have some artistic freedom before he loses creative control.”

“Caleb’s crib is going to go _right here,”_ Oliver said, indicating a spot on the wall opposite his bed. “We’re going to be able to stay up all night talking about aliens and robots and stuff! … Once Caleb can talk.”

“Sounds like a lot of fun!” my mom said. “Your mom and dad are going to love dealing with that morning fallout.”

The adults chuckled to themselves. I couldn’t share in their humor; my mind could only whir around what it would be like if I could stay up all night telling Oliver ghost stories, and eating junk food until we felt sick. I wanted to introduce Oliver to Qiana and have the three of us play hopsquare or Puffy Pets on our net gear glasses. I wanted to show him my favorite spot by my school where the river roped around a tall cluster of trees, and if you were brave, you could leap over the churning water from branch to branch.

I wanted Oliver not to want to push me aside, because now he had a new, better kid to share his secrets with. Even if I _was_ bad at keeping secrets.

“You’re going to help too, right?”

“Huh?”

I blinked, finding Oliver in my face.

“You’re going to help look after Caleb too, right?” Oliver asked. He lifted up his hand. I regarded it for a moment before the robot arm bumped against his fingers.

“Good!” Oliver said, shaking the claw in his grasp. “We men don’t break promises!” He made a face in contemplation, realizing that I didn’t fall into said category.

“Dinosaurs don’t, either,” I said. Based on the way Oliver smiled, this was the right answer. He put his arms around the robot and squeezed. The harness picked up on the sensation, and compressed around my shoulders. My eyes went wide from the unexpected hug.

“I love you, Ellie,” Oliver said. “And Aunt Poppy and Uncle Raul, too.”

My vision grew blurry. I clasped my shoulders in an attempt to return the hug. “I love you, too … And Aunt Kate, and Uncle Wyatt … and Caleb, too.”

Oliver let out a cough. My arms flew back when I realized the robot arms had been giving him a bit _too_ tight of a squeeze.

“You really are like a superhero,” Oliver said with a wheeze. “You’re strong!”

I grinned, doing my best to play off the fact that my stupid cousin almost had me crying like his baby brother. “I’m Dino Girl!” I said, lifting my arms with gusto. “I can handle any bad guy! Including anyone who would try to take away my new sidekick! I’ll protect you both, just you see!”

* * *

This wasn’t the first time I had gone to a track meet. I was all too familiar with the pounding sound of running shoes on rubber, the smell of freshly mowed grass, and the whirr of the concession droids hovering about, ready to be flagged down for a pretzel or a bottle of water. They were pretty busy today, since the sun was leaving the spectators broiling in their seats. I had to stay very still in order for my legs not to accidentally brush the hot metal bench to either side of me. The decision to wear shorts was a regret I wouldn’t soon forget; I’d wanted to look cute for my first track meet on the _cusp_ of going to middle school, and nothing said ‘cute’ more than my teal shorts and peach tie-dye shirt.

 _“All participants for the hundred-meter dash, please line up on the starting line,”_ the announcer’s voice boomed. A group of kids began to amble in the indicated direction. Among them was a petite girl with straight black hair pulled up into a ponytail. She glanced over her shoulder and caught my eye. A gap in her front teeth became visible as she smiled.

“Get’em, Qiana!” I shouted, cupping my hands around my mouth.

 _‘Obviously,’_ Qiana’s grin said. She was nowhere near as outwardly expressive as I was, but Qiana knew her strengths. As the spring semester drew to a close, she was unquestionably going to be the top of our class. When it came to track and field, she was one of the best there, too. It was funny, since she had all the makings of the most popular girl in our grade, yet sat quiet as a mouse in most social interactions. Maybe it was because Qiana was young for a fifth grader, having been placed into Kindergarten early like I was, but minus the growth spurt. Seeing her next to other kids on the field who nearly towered over her did put things into perspective. Qiana didn’t quite _fit._ Neither did I, I guess.

Unlike Qiana, though, I forced myself in _until_ I fit. Just like the dinosaurs who had to survive by evolving into birds, I got by with tossing out my Puffy Pets memorabilia and replacing it with Pouch Monsters and spending my free time playing games for hours on my net gear glasses. There was _technically_ a ban on Mage Mods at my school, but that didn’t stop anyone from putting theirs on before and after the school bell rang. You weren’t _anyone_ without a Mage Mod, so Qiana and I had spent hours drawing, tweaking, and programming until we were a matching set of wood nymphs — flowing hair, pointed ears, flowers bursting into bloom in our wake, and all. It was flashy, and Qiana almost always stared at her feet as we walked through the schoolyard. In contrast, I strode forward with all the fake confidence I could muster. Kids were going to like me, dang it, whether they wanted to or not.

“Hey, Ellie.”

Sam stood on the bleacher steps next to her dad. She had a habit of only talking to me when Cindy wasn’t around. This was fine, I guess, since deep down I think Sam missed hanging out. We didn’t have so much of a “falling out” as we did a “stumbling apart,” so things between us weren’t as bad as they could’ve been.

“Hey, Sam,” I said, looking her up and down. “I like your sandals.”

The olive branch had been offered. It was now time to see if it would be accepted.

“Thanks,” Sam said, smiling at the sparkling purple flip flops. “I, um … can we sit here?”

“Yeah,” I said, patting the bench. I pulled my hand back with a hiss, immediately regretting the decision.

 _“On your marks!”_ the announcer boomed. My head snapped forward as the runners crouched down.

_“Get set!”_

The robot next to the starting line let out a loud ‘pop!’, and the runners were off.

“Go, Qiana!” I said, hopping to my feet. I jumped up and down as the runners sprinted down the track.

“She’s in first!” Sam said, clapping her hands. “She’s so fast!”

“The fastest,” I said, still hopping up and down. We watched in rapt attention, then let out little squeals when Qiana crossed the finish line leagues ahead of the other runners.

“Come on,” I said, grabbing Sam’s hand. She glanced at her dad, who gave her a small wave as he took a seat.

The pair of us descended to the track. I let out a little skip as my feet touched the rubbery surface. I had thought about joining track and field with Qiana, but my interests gravitated more toward the gymnastics team instead. I was terrible, but after a few weeks of practice, I was practically beside myself with joy when I made it three quarters of the way through a backflip before landing flat on my face. The swollen lip had certainly been worth the level of pride that came with it.

“You thinking about joining track?” I asked.

“Nuh-uh,” Sam said, tucking her bright red hair behind her ear. “Arnold’s doing the long jump.”

She waved her arm back in the direction we came from. There was a general air of disinterest concerning what her older brother was up to. “I came because Dad said he’d take me to the mall after to get a new swimsuit.”

“Lucky,” I said. “Mom says I need a new one, but she keeps forgetting to take me. Plus, I don’t wanna go shopping with my _dad._ He just complains about how ‘inefficient’ the mall’s layout is every time we go.”

Sam let out a giggle at my exasperated expression. “That’s a bummer. You wanna come with after the meet? It’ll be more fun than it just being Dad and me.”

My face lit up. Sam and I used to be thick as thieves, so the prospect was more than tempting. “Yeah! Can Qiana come, too?”

Sam’s smile faltered. “Uh … yeah. Sure.”

“Cool!”

We squeezed through a group of kids, and I made a face at Sam as we got a whiff of their sweat. She slapped a hand over her mouth to hide her smile. After some bobbing and weaving in an attempt to not make contact with the other kids, we finally came across Qiana talking to her coach. The woman seemed exuberant, her ponytail bobbing as she glanced between Qiana and a group of other kids from our school who were getting themselves lined up for the next event.

“I got it all recorded,” the coach said, tapping the glasses on her temple. “I’ll send a copy to your dad after the meet. Great job, Qiana. Make sure to do your stretches and drink your water before going to sit down, OK?”

Qiana nodded. Her coach gave her a squeeze on the shoulder before stepping away. Sam and I watched the woman pass us by before continuing our approach.

“You’re like _Dromiceiomimus!”_ I said, bounding up to Qiana.

“What’s that?” Sam said, wrinkling her brow.

Even with the heat, I still felt a flush rise on my cheeks. My eyes darted to the distance as if I’d suddenly spotted something interesting. “Nothing; it’s dumb. Qiana’s just really fast, huh?”

“Um, yeah,” Sam said. “Like, _so_ fast. You even beat those older kids!”

Qiana’s eyes darted between Sam and I. She finally settled on looking at our shoes. “Thanks. Also, _Dromiceiomimus_ is a dinosaur.”

“Huh?”

“Sam wants us to go to the mall with her!” I said before Qiana could explain further. “Remember when my mom said I needed a new bathing suit, but then she kept forgetting to take me? We can all go when you’re done!”

Qiana shifted her weight from one foot to the other, “Um, I don’t really … Like, isn’t your dad picking us up?”

“Just to take us home to watch movies,” I said with a shrug. “Oh! Maybe we can see a movie at the holo-theater while we’re there! That one movie is playing about the aliens and the girl who has the mind control powers to make them explode!”

Sam grasped my arm, “She’s _so_ cool! Did you see her hair from the premier? How it was blue and shaved on the one side? I want to do my hair like that _so bad,_ but my mom said no.”

“They have VR booths at the mall!” I said, gaining steam. “You can make your hair look like that in those! Then show the pics to your mom and she’ll _have_ to let you do it from how cool you look.”

“Um.”

Sam and I glanced back to Qiana.

“My dad doesn’t really like me seeing stuff like that,” Qiana said, keeping her eyes lowered. “With blowing things up and stuff.”

 _“Qiana,”_ I said, putting my arm around her shoulders. “It’s fine! You’re dad’s always super busy, anyway! He probably won’t even notice if you go.”

Another shift to her weight caused my arm to flop from Qiana’s shoulders. She hugged her elbows. “I don’t … I don’t want to go,” she said. “Can’t we do what _I_ want to do and go back to your house? Like we were supposed to?”

“Come on, Qiana.”

“We just … we just always do what you want to do,” Qiana said, turning her head away.

“Pfft,” I said, rolling my eyes. Sam returned my grin. “That’s totally not true. We’re _always_ hanging out at our houses playing games and stuff.”

“Yeah, but,” Qiana said, lifting her eyes. “But you like doing that stuff too, right?”

“Yeah! Of course!” I said. “But, you know … It gets boring not going anywhere all the time, right? And you hardly ever want to go anywhere.”

“That’s not …” Qiana said, her voice growing soft. “That’s not true.”

“So, are you gonna come?” Sam asked, crossing her arms. She raised a brow at Qiana as we waited for an answer.

“No,” Qiana said, her expression hardening. “I don’t want to hang out with you; you said some mean things about us last year.”

Sam’s jaw hung open, “No, I didn’t!”

“Yeah, you did!” Qiana said, balling her hands into fists. “And Ellie got really hurt! She went to the soccer field just so you wouldn’t see her crying!”

“Qiana!” I said, the flush to my cheeks returning. _“Shut up!_ I did not!”

“Yeah, you did! You–”

“You’re such a liar, Qiana,” I said. Sam’s hand was snatched up as I turned around. “I’ll see you later.”

I didn’t look back. There were no reservations about bumping into sweaty shoulders this time around as I worked my way toward the bleachers.

“She’s so weird,” Sam said. “Like, she knows those things I said were only a joke, right?”

I knew Sam was lying, just like I knew I was making a mistake getting angry at Qiana for telling the truth. My stomach churned, but I kept walking.

“Yeah, she’s weird.”

* * *

Arno Day couldn’t come soon enough. I always had the nagging suspicion that _someone_ – whether or not it may be our parents – skimmed over the text communications Oliver and I exchanged once a month. For this reason, I never divulged as much information as I could’ve. Over the years, Oliver had grown attuned to reading between the lines of my vague statements; sometimes even picking up on things I was unaware of. I didn’t have this skill, since Oliver was generally like an open book and told me just about anything I wanted to know with no hesitation.

I knew about the arguments Oliver’s parents would have sometimes about Uncle Wyatt’s hours. I was aware of the time Oliver accidentally pressed the wrong function on the clothes dryer, shrunk his P.E. uniform, then hid it at the bottom of his toy box while saying it got lost at school. I also knew all about the falling out Oliver had with his former friend Connie when she became “too cool” to hang out with him and Riley anymore. That story had been on my mind a lot lately, and something I wanted to bring up during the time Oliver and I got to speak alone.

The first half of the family visit went by in a blur. Most of it was getting an update on how Caleb was doing, so it was fairly easy for me to fade into the background and fiddle with my hands during conversations around sleep schedules and dirty diapers. After what felt like an eternity, my parents finally got out of their seats.

“See you after lunch!” Uncle Wyatt said. He and Aunt Kate waved as my parents said their goodbyes and stepped out of the communications room.

“OK,” Aunt Kate said, handing Caleb off to Uncle Wyatt. “I’m going to get that nap in. You need anything?”

“Oliver and I got it all covered,” Uncle Wyatt said, rocking the baby in his arms. “Go take that nap. I’ll wake you in a bit.”

“Bye, Aunt Kate!” I said. My aunt returned my send off with a smile. It amazed me how chipper she still seemed, based on Oliver’s reports of how often Caleb woke them up in the night.

“Bye, Uncle Wyatt,” I said. A frown touched my lips when Uncle Wyatt stayed firmly seated. He was looking over his shoulder, patting the swaddled bundle in his arms as he listened to the sound of Aunt Kate making her way down the hall.

“Uncle Wy–”

“OK,” Uncle Wyatt said, whipping his head around to level Oliver with a serious expression. “You ready, buddy?”

“Got it!” Oliver said, producing a tablet.

“Uh …”

“Ellie Bean,” Uncle Wyatt said, turning his attention back to the screen. “For the next hour and a half, you and Oliver are going to have your usual chat _right here_ in our living room like you always do. This will be confirmed by me, who will be watching the whole thing from the couch over there.”

“Um …”

“So, when _anyone_ asks, that’s how your visit went,” Uncle Wyatt said, raising his brows. “That’s what happened, OK?”

I could feel my mouth hanging open, but I was too bewildered to correct it. “Um … what?”

“We’re gonna sneak out!” Oliver said, fighting to keep his voice in a whisper.

“You are _most certainly_ doing no such thing,” Uncle Wyatt said. He cradled a squirming Caleb in one arm while he fiddled with something to the side of the screen. The large monitor before me went black. I regarded my own dumbfounded expression for a moment before the picture blinked back on. Judging by the angle, I was now looking through the camera located on the tablet in Oliver’s grasp.

“Now, I boosted the signal, so in theory, you shouldn’t have a problem,” Uncle Wyatt said. He reached over to usher Oliver out of his seat and toward what I assumed to be the front door. “And what do you say if anyone asks who the nice little girl is who lives on your tablet?”

“That’s she’s my friend who had to stay home from school because she sprained her ankle playing laser tag,” Oliver said, “and I’m taking her to the park to see if she can find the bracelet she left there.”

“And?”

“The bracelet is from her Aunt Margaret and it’s a treasured family heirloom.”

“Rock solid, buddy,” Uncle Wyatt said, ruffling Oliver’s hair. His eyes drifted to mine, and his expression turned sheepish. “To be fair, we’re only utilizing skills I picked up from your mother. Just, uh … please don’t tell Poppy that.”

I was bad at keeping secrets, but this one felt like it would be worth the extra effort.

“OK, Uncle Wyatt,” I said, crossing my arms with a grin.

“Now, be back in an hour,” Uncle Wyatt said. The front door slid open, and Oliver stepped over the threshold. “Love you kids! Have fun! Stay out of trouble! Don’t make me regret this!”

“Love you too, Dad!” Oliver said, already bounding away. “Bye, Caleb! I’ll be back after we see the park!”

“The park?” I said. The tablet was at a weird angle, and I couldn’t make out much other than a light blue wall broken up by the occasional yellow door.

“Yeah,” Oliver said, adjusting the tablet. “They put in new anti-gravity chambers!”

A goofy grin adorned my face. I sat up in my chair to get a better look at the Arno’s interior. It reminded me of the mall, a little bit; the wide pathway we were on appeared to be at least two stories up, and curved slightly as it disappeared in the distance behind a large, central metal column. The ground floor below was filled with people, and their chatter echoed in and out in a genial hum.

The people of the Arno dressed almost as if they were all wearing uniforms. I’d never noticed it before, but dwelling on the concept made me realize Oliver and his family all dressed pretty similarly, save for the color of their shirts. There was also something inherently _off_ about the people milling about that I couldn’t put my finger on. It wasn’t until Oliver and I were riding down a glass elevator did I finally make the realization.

“There’s no glasses!” I said, leaning forward in my seat. I squinted at the faces of the crowd passing Oliver by as he exited the elevator. “Why isn’t anyone wearing net gear glasses?”

“We don’t need them!” Oliver said. He squeezed between a group of people in line for a food stall and an automated hand truck carrying a stack of metal sheets. “That’s what Dad told me. He said the cost-benefit analysis of building the glasses for everyone here wasn’t viable.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Uh … Dunno.”

The walkway opened up into a wide courtyard. The gigantic room was filled to the brim with people and a number of colorful stalls, the ceiling arcing up in a high dome littered with blinking advertisements. Oliver scurried across the courtyard, darting between groups of people as if being left out in the open for too long would but him in danger of snipers. I wished he would slow down, since more than half of what I was seeing now were just blurs of people’s feet.

“Hey there, Oliver!”

By the way I went tumbling, I could tell Oliver almost dropped the tablet. He spun around. I was able to make out a tall man with fiery red hair, round cheeks, and a beard that reminded me of a rather impressive lion’s mane.

“C-Captain,” Oliver squeaked.

_Uh-Oh_

“How are you, son?” the man said, beaming. This man being the Arno’s captain checked out, since I was now almost positive I’d seen that red beard across the cover of the workbook we’d received in our Extraterrestrial Studies class last spring. I tried not to let it show that my stomach now felt like a pit of twisting snakes.

“U-um,” Oliver said, shifting his weight. “Fine … I’m fine, sir.”

“Just thought I’d spend my break today checking out the Arno Day celebration here at the square,” the captain said, thankfully not picking up on Oliver’s distress. “Don’t worry! The bridge has been left in good hands.”

The captain laughed, although my cousin didn’t seem to share in the amusement.

“Uh … uh-huh …”

“Where’s your dad?” the captain said, looking about. “I wanted to ask him abo–”

“He’s at home! With mom and Caleb!” Oliver said. It was at this moment I realized I may have finally come across someone else who was as bad with secrets as I was.

“Oh?” the captain said, furrowing his rather impressive brow. “You here all alone?”

Oliver didn’t answer. He made a nervous sound as the tablet began to droop.

“He’s showing me the festival!” I piped up. The captain appeared puzzled for a moment before Oliver sheepishly held up the tablet.

“I … um …” I said, doing my best to plaster on a fake smile. “I’m sick, so Oliver’s showing me the festival.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” the captain said. He seemed genuinely sorry, which made my smile grow a little more natural. “Hope you’re not put out for too long, young lady!”

“It’s fine!” I said. “It’s just a cold.”

“– twisted ankle.”

I glanced at the little square in the corner of the screen to meet Oliver’s panicked expression.

“I twisted my ankle, _then_ I got a cold.”

“Oh dear,” the captain said. “That’s, uh … that’s a bit of bad luck. Good thing you have Oliver here to keep you company, hmm?”

“Yup!” I said. “He’s the best! He’s even taking me to the park to see the new anti-gravity chambers!”

The captain’s face lit up. “Ah! You’re in for a treat! I got to use one myself back at the grand opening. It won’t be the same as you seeing them in person, but I’m sure you two will have a great time! Have fun, kids!”

“We … we will!” Oliver said. He backed away, gave a little wave, then turned and ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction.

“You’re such a scaredy cat!” I said. I laughed at the expression Oliver shot my way.

“I wasn’t prepared to run into the _captain,”_ Oliver said with a huff. “We’re _so_ lucky we didn’t get caught! You even told him where we’re going!”

“It’s _fine,”_ I said, laughing. Oliver rolled his eyes.

The rest of the trip was, thankfully, far less exciting, as we finally made it to the recreation center and Oliver got in line for the anti-gravity chambers. Apparently, there were multiple different sizes, and Oliver was able to get into a fairly fast que for the smaller “observation” chambers. These ones weren’t outfitted for various sports like the larger rooms, and the signs made it seem like they were usually used for stargazing or meditation. Considering there was a rather boisterous festival going on in the nearby square, the smaller rooms weren’t in high demand.

The woman at the desk directed Oliver to head to an elevator to the right. We went down the hall, and I ogled the various groups heading in either direction carrying flags, rackets, balls of various sizes, and even broomsticks. Oliver wedged himself into a wide elevator nearly stuffed to capacity. He had to strain to reach the buttons, but he hit the number he’d been given by the receptionist. The doors closed, and the elevator lurched into motion.

The first group got off three levels down. The doors opened, and they stepped into a plain room with white walls on all sides. This was the routine for every following group until Oliver and I were the only ones left on the polished elevator. When the doors opened again, I let out a gasp.

Unlike all the other rooms, the walls – and even the floor – were made of a clear material. Through this material I could see … space. The vast expanse went on forever, broken up by small speckles of stars. Oliver had been right all those years ago – the stars from the Arno really did look different than what we had on Earth. There were _a lot_ more of them, for one. They also didn’t sparkle, but shone in a steady light akin to someone holding a flashlight behind a sheet of plastic poked with dozens of holes.

The stars were beautiful, but seeing them on all sides at once was a bit overwhelming. Even though I knew I was very firmly seated on a chair that was millions of miles away, I still got the same queasy feeling I’d get when going on roller coasters. I almost let out a shout when Oliver stepped into the room, as if he would fall through the floor and keep tumbling in the darkness forever.

“You ready?” Oliver said.

I hadn’t been paying attention to the feed of his camera in the corner of the screen. I glanced over in time to watch him press a button on the one solid wall by the elevator. There was a loud ‘thump,’ then the picture started to drift. As the tablet spun, I got a full-body shot of Oliver and watched in awe as he began to float.

“You …” I said, having trouble finding the words for just how _cool_ the situation was. “You’re flying!”

 _“Floating,”_ Oliver said. The grin made it apparent it was a joke, and I laughed. I pulled my knees up to my chest and watched Oliver glide around the room. He would get to a wall every now and then, using his feet to spring off the side and twirl in the air.

“This is so awesome,” I said. My eyes followed Oliver as he did more consecutive backflips than I could ever dream of doing in my gymnastics class. “I wish I could take screencaps; no one will ever believe me getting to see this.”

“Qiana would believe you.”

I didn’t need to be experiencing anti-gravity for my stomach to do a flop. I looked away from the monitor to stare at the far more stationary floor.

“Are you guys still fighting?” Oliver asked.

When I glanced up, he was upside down, his hands folded over his stomach. A thoughtful look was on his face as he watched me.

“Kinda, I guess,” I said. “I don’t know; I haven’t talked to her since break started.”

“You guys should make up,” Oliver said. His feet landed on the ceiling, and he pushed off in a slow summersault. “I can tell you miss her a lot.”

“No, you can’t.”

“You write different, when you’re sad,” Oliver said, matter-of-fact. “Your sentences are short, and you make more spelling mistakes. You should just talk to her.”

I groaned, rolling my head on my shoulders in a manner that was far too dramatic. “I’ll see her next semester; I can talk to her then.”

“Come on, Ellie,” Oliver said. His shoes touched down on the clear wall, the universe at his back. He puffed out his chest and placed his hands on his hips. “What would Dino Girl do?”

I couldn’t help but to laugh at his silly pose. “I dunno,” I said. “What _would_ she do, Space Boy?”

“Space Boy?” Oliver said, furrowing his brow.

“Yeah, Space Boy!” I said, pointing at him. “He flies through space and rescues people! He’s there when Dino Girl is stupid and doesn’t know what to do!”

“Dino Girl isn’t stupid,” Oliver said. With a determined expression, he launched away from the wall, arms held high. “But sometimes she gets in trouble, too. Then we have crossover issue number one: Dino Girl and Space Boy versus the Wargals!”

I threw back my head with a snort, “Why’s it always the Wargals?”

“Because they’re the evilest creatures in the universe!” Oliver said, putting up a fist. “And only the strongest superheroes can beat them! And Dino Girl is the strongest!”

I leapt out of my chair, putting my hands on my hips, “I think Space Boy is the strongest!”

“Well,” Oliver said, grinning. “I _can_ fly.”

“Oh yeah?” I said, returning the coy expression. “Dino Girl could still crush you with her super-strong robot arms.”

“If she could catch me!”

Oliver did a somersault and grasped the tablet, the room behind him spinning in a dizzying manner as he held it aloft. The array of stars broken up by the occasional wall left me a little disoriented. I stumbled back from the control panel and caught myself on the chair. This must have been amusing, since Oliver started to laugh. I squeezed my eyes tight to keep my head from spinning as I joined in on the merriment.

“One day, we’ll have a mighty showdown to see who’s the strongest!” Oliver said as he caught his breath. “You’ll see!”

 _You would win,_ I thought. When I looked at Oliver, I saw nothing but steadfast determination. Oliver didn’t doubt himself. He didn’t try and pretend to be someone who he wasn’t. Oliver was my hero, and he would win versus me, any day.

“We’ll see,” I said. “But why would we have a great battle in the first place?”

Oliver hummed, looking away in thought, “Oh! Alright, so it all started when the Wargals stole the Nova Ruby and Space Boy went on a journey to get it back …”

* * *

The fall semester was rapidly approaching, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready for it. I hadn’t spoken to Qiana in months, and with each passing day, I only grew more anxious.

_Just call her. In just a few blinks, you can call her. Just tell her you’re sorry._

But I was a coward. A coward who’d made up with Sam and Cindy, who I knew disliked Qiana just as much as she disliked them. I had spent a fair chunk of the summer between their houses, the mall, the park, and the beach; the three of us laughing and taking selfies and doing whatever we could to push the limits of what our parents allowed us to do without getting caught. I was having fun. I was having fun … but it wasn’t the same as when I’d have fun with Qiana. There was a wall which would fall away with Qiana, and I missed that feeling of being free. I only ever got to experience that twice a year now with Oliver, and it would be some time before I got to see him again. It wasn’t the same, but at the very least we still had written correspondences.

_‘Dad gave me an awesome present!’_

Oliver told me about the compass his dad gave him – the one that was in the picture of my great-something aunt Eliza. He went on for a bit about how the magnets worked (which for the Arno meant that it would occasionally lock on to the magnetic field of a passing star), and to my amusement he even had a few things to say about how cool the wooden box it came in was.

 _‘Our compass is on the mantle,’_ I’d typed, already working on the reply email. _‘Mom and Dad have it framed next to a picture of my great-whatever grandpa. The picture of him is funny because it doesn’t move, it’s on actual paper. So it comes from trees, just like your box.’_

 _‘School was fun today,’_ Oliver had typed. _‘We played dodgeball, and my team almost won! I busted out some of Space Boy’s awesome moves I’ve been working on. Remember how Dino Girl has the Extreme Tornado-Blasting Black-Hole-Explosion Fossil Ray? Space Boy has an Ultra, Mega, Super-duper, Jumbo-Galactic-Plus-Infinity Star-Crushing Sneak Attack – which totally worked!’_

 _‘I’m surprised you didn’t get hit with like, a million balls while you were saying that name,’_ I typed with a grin.

 _‘I really wanted to tell Dad about it,’_ Oliver continued, ‘ _but he wasn’t home when I got back from school again today. He got a new job in maintenance, and he has to work at nighttime, now.’_

My mom would get her email from Uncle Wyatt at the same time I’d get mine from Oliver. I didn’t read Oliver’s until after dinner, but I could tell something must’ve been up from how quiet Mom and Dad were at the table. Mom had mentioned Uncle Wyatt’s new job, and that I should avoid bringing it up with Oliver until things settled down. She didn’t tell me _why,_ exactly, Uncle Wyatt stopped being an engineer, but maybe it was because she also didn’t know. I doubted that, since Uncle Wyatt and Mom seemed to tell each other everything. I guess Mom wasn’t going to say anything either way.

 _‘Working at night could be fun though, I guess,’_ I wrote. _‘It would be like sneaking around like a spy or something while everyone is asleep.’_ I paused, but continued typing. _‘Why did your dad change jobs, anyway?’_

Sorry Mom, but curiosity was getting the better of me.

 _‘Dad gave me the super-secret mission of looking after the compass,’_ Oliver’s email continued. _‘I’m supposed to tell him right away if I see it do the weird spinning thing. Oh yeah, it does that sometimes. He said I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but I don’t think he’d mind if I told you.’_

I grinned, and continued reading the rest of the email. Oliver went on for a bit about Caleb, and how he and my aunt Kate were working on getting him to say his first word. He talked about finally telling his dad he wanted to be an engineer, although I still thought he should be an artist like Aunt Kate considering how good he was at drawing. The last section of the email was his ongoing story about Space Boy, and how he was going to tie in Space Boy and Dino Girl going on their first adventure.

 _‘So after saving the day and leaving Planet X, Space Boy returns to the Fortress of Solitude,’_ Oliver wrote. ‘ _I think there’s going to be a portal to the Mother Planet there._ _It’ll be right next to the Automatic Cookie Dispenser.’_

 _‘The other side of the portal will be in Dino Girl’s Treehouse Lair,’_ I typed. _‘Between the Claw Filer and the VR racing game.’_

 _‘Space Boy is still looking for the Nova Ruby,’_ Oliver’s email went on. _‘And maybe the reason he couldn’t find it before was because it was on the Mother Planet. He goes through the portal, and that’s when he meets Dino Girl face-to-face. They fight at first, because they’re suspicious the other person might be a bad guy in disguise. But then they learn to get along because they’re both superheroes with cool powers who like to save people. They go on adventures together to find the Nova Ruby! You’ll have to help me with drawing what the Mother Planet looks like, though.’_

I was a terrible artist, but for Oliver, I would do my best.

 _‘I’ll try to draw Earth the best I can,’_ I typed. _‘Don’t laugh at me, though.’_

 _‘Well, it’s bedtime,’_ Oliver wrote. _‘I’ll talk to you later! Tell Aunt Poppy and Uncle Raul I said hi!_

_Love,_

_Oliver (Space Boy)’_

I closed the email draft. I still had some homework to do, and I figured I could finish drafting my reply email in the morning.

* * *

**‘REDACTED’**

I frowned. I blinked to get my net gear glasses to refresh Oliver’s email, but I got the same message.

**‘REDACTED’**

“OK …”

It was a bummer that I’d need to retype what I’d put together for my reply email, but not enough so that I felt like dwelling on the fact. I was going to head to Sam’s house and work on our summer writing projects until the mid-afternoon when we’d meet up with Cindy at the waterpark. It was the last week before school started again, and we were going to get as much out of it as we could.

“Dad, can you take a look at my glasses when I get home?” I asked when I came down for breakfast.

“Sure, Xuxu,” Dad said, his eyes tracking along as he read something on his own glasses. “What’s the issue?”

“Something with the email,” I said with a shrug. “It’s not a big deal.”

* * *

“I learned about it on _the news!”_ Mom screamed. She had shut the door to her room, but the barrier may as well have been paper for all the good it did to muffle her voice. I didn’t even have to make an effort to overhear her end of the conversation from down the hall.

“How could the FCP release this information to the media before telling us?!”

I had changed into a fresh pair of pajamas, having just finished taking a shower and washing the smell of chlorine from my hair. Cindy had wanted me to show her how to do a fishtail braid, so I was taking the time to practice in front of my vanity. I made sure the girl looking back at me in the mirror was showing no outward signs of distress.

_It’s fine; everything is fine._

“Well, when are you going to know?” Mom’s voice bellowed. “You said the explosion happened days ago! How could you not have names yet?!”

I had learned about the accident on my way home from the water park, when Cindy’s parents drove us downtown to pick up ice cream. As we turned a corner and got a glimpse of central square, the big screens usually advertising movies or clothing were filled with news anchors above banners with the same general message:

‘DOZENS INJURED, NINE DEAD IN TRAGIC ARNO SYSTEM FAILURE’

Cindy’s dad had pulled over as naturally as if coming to a stop in the middle of the financial district had been the plan all along. His wife did a commendable job of keeping her tone light as she excused herself and paced along the bustling sidewalk as she talked to someone on her glasses. They ended up taking me straight home.

“I understand that! Yes, I – excuse me? No! I understand the situation perfectly! If the comm link was damaged, of course communications would be delayed. What I _don’t_ understand is how you don’t know who was affected. Why is the bridge crew not conveying that information?”

The conversation went on for almost an hour. My curiosity had gotten the better of me, and I ended up sliding on my glasses and scrolling through news articles while my mom continued her tirade. I was able to pick up that some safety measure on the Arno had failed, causing oxygen from the life support systems to leak into an engineering wing. An explosion likely caused by a spark took out a number of vital life support and communications systems. As a result, the Arno could only send messages to Earth through Morse code. I looked up what that was and tried my best to distract myself from my mom’s voice echoing down the hall as I tapped my fingers on my desk.

My attention was caught again by the much lower murmur of my dad’s voice. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but from the tone I could guess he was trying to calm my mom down.

“No, Raul. Honey, please. I just – wait, no! You will call me back, do you understand? You will call me back the second the Arno sends you that list! As soon as they tell you, I want to know! I should be number one on your list, not the media! Our rights are protected under FCP Article six-six-two-eight-zero, you got that? Do you understand? You _will_ call me back!”

The FCP didn’t end up calling Mom back. They didn’t need to, since she called them herself every day for the next month. A week after her first call, she stopped going in to work. I would catch her staring off into nothing in the back yard or the living room as she chewed on the tip of her nail. Dinners would be a recap of my mom going on about the FCP giving her the runaround and transferring her “like a hot potato” between HR and PR and a number of different departments, none of whom had answers.

 _“They keep telling me their communications channel is busy with emergency response instructions,”_ she’d said. _“But for weeks? They can print whatever parts they need up there! How can the regular transponder not be up and running yet?”_

Mom even asked if I could call Qiana; she knew Qiana’s dad worked closely with the bridge crew of the Arno, and she was having trouble getting ahold of the man herself. Despite the uncomfortable squirming in my stomach, I knew I didn’t have a good excuse to say no to the request. But to my surprise, Qiana didn’t answer. Even when I tried multiple times over several days, she never picked up. I tried not to let it bother me.

_It’s fine; everything is fine._

* * *

The pink material of my pajama pants flopped around my ankles as I bound down the stairs and into the kitchen for dinner. Mom had made pot roast, and the entire house was filled with a smell that left my stomach growling. My dad had finally convinced Mom to channel her anxiety into something other than biting her nails and pruning the flowers bushes into twigs, which resulted in Dad and I sitting down to elaborately cooked meals my mom had poured herself over for hours. The past month left my mom far more on edge than I’d seen her before, but at least the distraction was returning some sense of normalcy.

“Is dinner re–”

The doorbell let out a pleasant chime as my mom was putting on oven mitts to fetch a loaf of brioche out of the oven. She sighed and paused the task to snatch up the pair of net gear glasses sitting on the counter and slide them on her nose.

“Yes, can I help you?” Mom said. Her eyes grew wide. “Mr. Silber?!”

The volume of the voice coming through Mom’s glasses was too faint for me to hear.

“Oh! Um … hold on,” Mom said, scrambling to grab the bread loaf. “I’ll be at the door in a sec.”

“I got it!” I said.

I was out of the kitchen and down the hall in a flash. I had no idea what was going on, but getting unexpected visitors was always exciting.

“Hi!” I said, opening the front door.

The man standing on the doorstep looked down at me with a kindly expression. He was lanky, and dressed in a pressed, dark navy suit. I would normally find myself a little uncomfortable in the presence of someone dressed in such a formal manner, but his gentle expression – plus the auburn hair which seemed to stick out every which way – gave the man an oddly endearing quality.

“Hello there,” the man said. “You must be Eloise – it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The man offered his hand, and I took it. He gave my hand a light shake before pulling away.

“I go by Ellie,” I said. “Are you a friend from Mom’s work?”

The man opened his mouth, but paused.

“Mr. Silber,” Mom said, coming up behind me. She placed a hand on my shoulder, and regarded the man with a look far less genial than my own. “This is unexpected. Do you finally have news?”

“Ah, yes,” Mr. Silber said. His attention drifted back to me. I looked back with a puzzled expression.

Mr. Silber held my gaze for a moment before raising his eyes. “I’ve come here to discuss something with you, Mrs. Naxario. Is there somewhere private we can talk? Your husband is also welcome to our discussion, although I would suggest not having your daughter present.”

My mom took a moment to answer. I could feel her fingers digging into my shoulder. She cleared her throat and stepped aside. “Please, come in. We can talk in my husband’s study. Would you like anything? Coffee? Tea?”

“No, thank you for the offer,” Mr. Silber said.

The tight grip my mom had on me didn’t loosen until we entered the kitchen. She asked Mr. Silber to wait a moment while she went to find my dad. This left Mr. Silber and I standing awkwardly in silence.

“Um,” I said. I waited to continue until Mr. Silber glanced my way, an eyebrow raised above his round net gear glasses. “Is Oliver OK?”

What I was expecting was the usual reaction adults gave to placate a worried child – maybe a nervous chuckle followed by their voice going up a few pitches to assure me that _of course_ Oliver was just fine. I wanted Mr. Silber to make me feel silly for even asking.

This was not the reaction I received. Mr. Silber’s face went completely blank. It was like I was staring at a wax dummy which had suddenly run out of magic and went back to being an inanimate object. I didn’t know how to react to this, and simply held his stare as something in my chest twisted.

“Mr. Silber?” my mom’s voice called.

Mr. Silber blinked, and the life returned to his features. He put out a hand, hesitated, then placed it on the crown of my head. He kept it there for a moment before turning and following my mom’s voice.

“Yes, right in there,” I heard my mom say. I listened to the sound of footsteps before my mom appeared in the kitchen.

“Here, honey, I’ll get you some food and you can go eat in your room, OK? Just stay upstairs until we call you down, alright?”

I nodded. My mom may’ve noted my oddly subdued nature, but seemed too rattled herself to be bothered over it. She waited until I’d reached the upper landing before disappearing down the hallway toward my dad’s study at the back of the house. I heard the door slide closed, and I decided to take a seat on the top step of the stairs. I knew I wouldn’t be able to hear anything, but the idea of shutting myself in my room didn’t come across as very appealing. I wasn’t even hungry anymore, and set the bowl of food aside so I could hug my knees as I strained my ears.

There was nothing for a few minutes, which was expected. My eyes ended up wandering to the pictures along the stairwell, and I focused on the one at the top. As it shifted, it showed the family picture from last Christmas; Uncle Wyatt had one arm around Aunt Kate and the other on Oliver’s shoulder. Aunt Kate was cradling Caleb with a big grin. My parents and I were in the foreground, my finger pointing back at the large monitor toward Oliver while his finger was pointed forward toward me. My mom was giving me bunny ears, and my dad was beaming at my mom.

Then came the sound. It made me tear my eyes away from the picture and lock on the downstairs’ hallway. What felt like a phantom hand grasped my heart and twisted.

Even today, I can’t say what the sound was; there are not enough words to properly describe it. I know where it came from, though. I know it came from my mom; loud enough to be heard from all the way across the house. I know the sound was something that made me feel like I was falling. That I was falling, and falling, and was never going to get up again.


	4. Chapter 4

“Four of the nine people who passed away in the Arno accident were your family,” the woman said. She was older, with poufy pink hair tied up in buns. She looked like a poodle.

“Eloise, it’s OK if you want to spend some more time at home,” she said, lacing her weathered fingers together on her desk. “You don’t need to come back to school right away; it’s perfectly normal to give yourself time to heal.”

“Can I go back to class?”

The woman sighed. She picked up a pen to write something on the inlaid touch screen of her desk. “Of course. Just know you can come to the councilor’s office whenever you need to talk.”

“OK.”

I slid out of my seat and out the door to the sound of the councilor reminding me not to run. I didn’t make eye contact with the receptionist as I strode through the school administration office. The floor beneath my feet shifted from thin carpet to tile as I stepped into the hallway. My footsteps echoed around the empty halls.

I stretched out my arm to run my fingers along the lockers as I walked. A few adults spotted me, which normally would’ve resulted in a firm request for a hall pass. But this time they turned their heads and pretended like I wasn’t there. I bet there’d been a staff meeting about me. All the teachers looked at me the same way:

_‘Poor thing’_

“I’m fine,” I said, to no one in particular.

Some of the kids would stop talking when I’d approach them in the schoolyard. Most had the decency to look embarrassed. The more brazen ones asked outright if it was true if I knew the people on the spaceship who blew up in the explosion.

I went up a flight of stairs, then stopped halfway down the hall at the door to my classroom. My hand reached out to curl around the handle.

“I’m fine.”

I took a breath, and a genial smile grew on my face. The door was flung open as I skipped inside.

“What’d I miss?”

* * *

Mom didn’t have to tell me to be on my best behavior. The black blouse and skirt set out for me was more than enough for that. I slid the clothes on in a solemn fashion. When I was done, I glanced up at the full-length mirror hanging on the back of my door. My hair looked like a mess; it was falling over my shoulders and sticking up in a way that made me look like a poof ball. I snatched a green headband off my vanity and used it to tuck my hair back behind my ears. Normally, my mom would be upset I wasn’t doing anything nicer, considering how dressed up I was, but I had a feeling she wouldn’t care about how my hair looked today.

We drove in silence. Mom always used to drive, but now it was Dad. Mom just stared out the window with an expression I couldn’t read from her reflection. The one and only time anyone spoke was when we got to the security checkpoint and Dad asked us to take out our passes.

Mr. Silber met us in front of the FCP building; we’d been assigned a special parking space close to the front doors, as if that was supposed to mean something. We’d also never had an escort before, but today Mr. Silber stuck to us like glue as we entered the building and shut our net gear glasses into lockers. Refreshments were offered in the form of hot drinks and a selection of fresh confections from the cafeteria. There was a good chance these things had been put together just for us. My father accepted a coffee out of politeness, but my mom and I declined — well, _I_ declined. My mom didn’t appear to be listening to anything Mr. Silber had to say. Her gaze generally remained fixated on just about anything but the people around her.

Riding the elevator was simultaneously familiar and totally alien. Having Mr. Silber there making hushed small talk with my dad was a constant reminder that something was off. I could tell he would glance my way on occasion, probably in an attempt to offer platitudes once he caught my attention. I kept my gaze pointedly averted so he wouldn’t have the opportunity.

“Here we are,” Mr. Silber said as we stepped onto a floor I wasn’t familiar with. We were all the way at the top of the building, the room Mr. Silber ushering us into boasting an opaque ceiling of glass panels. This new environment reminded me of the botanical gardens – plants with twisting vines hung from the ceiling in clusters between small trees with jagged bark and dark ferns with leaves as large as my head. The plants were meticulously cared for – almost to the point they seemed fake. I hated everything about them.

In the middle of the room was a round table surrounded by four chairs. There was a teapot, cups, and cookies sitting on a silver tray front-and-center. I couldn’t understand why the FCP thought throwing food our way would make the sting of what was about to happen hurt any less.

I kept my eyes firmly on my black flats as Mr. Silber pulled out my chair. A thanks in the form of a mumble escaped my lips. My mom’s hand reached out to grasp my own the second we were seated. Her grip was painful, but I tried not to give that away.

“Arno communications are still spotty,” Mr. Silber said, his slender fingers floating through the air as he typed on a keyboard only he could see. “But Captain Putnam insisted on sending this message through. I’ll do my best to do his words justice.”

Mr. Silber lowered his hands, folding them on the table. With his straight back and black suit, he looked polite, proper – like he was about to deliver a presentation on the water cycle or the history of off-world mining. It made me want to throw a cookie at his head just so he’d stop pretending to keep it together for our sake. I was growing tired of people looking at me like they couldn’t show what they were really feeling.

“‘Greetings from the Arno,’” Mr. Silber said, reading the text drifting across his glasses. “‘This is captain Alexander Putnam.’”

I recalled the tall man with bushy eyebrows and rosy cheeks. I’d once been held close enough to his face to make out the way his beard turned a slightly lighter shade of red right below his bottom lip. That had been right before the anti-gravity chamber; the last visit I’d seen Oliver.

_I’m fine; everything’s fine._

“‘I would like to begin by offering my condolences,’” the letter continued. “‘I take full responsibility for this terrible tragedy. It was my fault Wyatt and his family were in the engineering room during the system failure. I had just offered him his job back, and when he had said he’d wanted to bring his family by to celebrate the news, I went against protocol and allowed him to bring them to his office. This was a terrible oversight on my part. I will be stepping down as Captain, relinquishing my position at the time we transition out of emergency status. I know this does nothing to reduce your pain, but I want to make it known that myself, and the entire population of the Arno, mourn your family’s loss as if they were members of our own.’”

My mom said nothing, staring at the floor. Her hand was given a squeeze by my dad as he nodded absently. “Please give the Captain our thanks for his regards,” he said.

“Of course,” Mr. Silber said. He carried on with the letter:

An expanded safety council was being put in place, and the new engineering wing was going to be named after my uncle.

An exhibit at the art museum was going to be held featuring my aunt’s works.

Oliver’s classmates all wrote us letters, which the FCP would send along when they were able.

A teddy bear statue would be installed by the nursery in honor of Caleb.

I spotted a hibiscus bush in the corner of the room. Its yellow blooms were curled up in tight buds aside from a single large flower, its bright red stigma reaching for the sky. That flower wanted out of here just as badly as I did. I stared at it in solidarity.

“Ah, it’s time for the service.”

I flinched as I looked back to Mr. Silber. He was regarding the teapot with an expression touched with something melancholy. The look was smoothed back with a sigh as he rose to his feet.

“Come on, love,” Dad whispered, helping mom up. Her grip on my hand loosened as my mom leaned in to him. My own chair was pulled back, and this time I made sure the thanks I gave Mr. Silber was audible.

“The town car is waiting at the front of the building,” Mr. Silber said.

He crossed the room and pressed the button for the elevator. The shining doors slid open, and the adults stepped inside. I hesitated, already knowing that this would be the last time I’d set foot in this place.

_There’s no reason for me to come to the FCP anymore._

My eyes wandered back to the yellow flower. Feeling a tightness growing in my chest, I looked away. A slight tap to my shoulder was a reminder not to linger as Mr. Silber guided me into the elevator. I shot him a tight-lipped smile before dropping my gaze.

* * *

My black blouse and skirt were traded out for a loose t-shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants the second I was alone in my room. I stared at the discarded clothes for a moment before picking them up and roughly shoving them into the small bin next to my desk. The black material overflowed over the bright green edges of the basket, and with a frustrated sound I shoved the material down. I was nearly out of breath by the time I stalked to the bed and threw myself onto the covers. My net gear glasses had been tossed aside when I’d changed, and I slid them back onto my nose before focusing on the screen.

Four dots came together, spinning about in a dance. I watched the animation with a blank expression, a gentle chiming in my ear. Eventually, the dots disappeared, and I was left gazing at the empty fish tank on the other side of my room.

 _“Call not connected,”_ my glasses chimed.

I exhaled, rolling onto my back. My ceiling had been programmed to reflect the sky; I didn’t move a muscle as the pinks and purples of the sunset shifted to a deep blue. Pinpricks of light slowly sparkled into existence.

_'These are the stars from the Arno! You can only see them from here.'_

My breaths grew short. My focus shifted to my glasses and I blinked in rapid succession as I navigated through menus. In less than a minute, the night sky on my ceiling was swapped out with the standard default image. The purple pattern shifted in waves, and I watched the ripples fluttering, transfixed.

Part of me wanted to cry. Another wanted to scream. I listened to the third part that told me to stuff all that down.

I blinked a few times, opening up the chat menu on my glasses. I lifted up my hands to type on the ghostly keyboard before blinking again to send.

_‘Hey.’_

Less than a minute passed before I got a reply from Sam.

 _‘Hey!’_ her message read. _‘Were you finally able to reach Qiana?’_

_‘No. She didn’t pick up again.’_

_‘I’m sorry. Maybe her Dad was able to afford to get her new glasses when he got transferred? Maybe she just hasn’t synced her contacts yet?’_

I rolled over to stare at the wall. _‘Yeah, maybe.’_

_‘You OK?’_

I closed my eyes. I had a pretty big room, but I felt like everything was closing in. Sometimes I couldn’t catch my breath no matter how hard I tried, even if I was sitting still. There were other times I wanted to throw my glasses against the wall and watch them shatter into a thousand pieces. I’d checked what felt like a thousand times if all the emails back and forth between Oliver and I over the years said anything other than ‘REDACTED.’ I was told it was a glitch in the system the FCP was going to fix any time now, but the pit in my gut grew larger with each passing day.

And sometimes I would open my dresser drawer to look at the collection of ribbons I used to braid through Qiana’s hair. Some were plain, others sparkled, and a few even had lights that shone in repeating patterns. Qiana’s favorite had been the dark green one that came from her mom’s room. She had me hold onto it until she’d learn how to braid her own hair. She never needed to learn, though, since I had always been there to do it.

Then the Arno disaster happened, and her dad got transferred somewhere. I didn’t get a chance to say I was sorry; I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.

Not to Qiana, or my family.

_‘I’m fine.’_

I had forced myself to fit in with other people; I could force myself to be fine.

I could force myself to feel nothing.

* * *

The arguments were kept quiet at first. Mom and Dad would speak behind closed doors in forced whispers until they’d notice I’d come home from gymnastics practice. When they weren’t fighting, they were … empty.

Mom was subdued most the time. She would only get worked up over things being left messy. I purposely started not washing my dishes, or leaving my dirty clothes on the floor, just so that she’d say _something_ to me. Over time, my hopes of those interactions morphing into anything positive slowly drifted away. I missed having someone to talk to, so I started spending more time at Sam or Cindy’s.

The bad days would be when I’d spot my mom crying. It was hard for me to tell if she did a poor job trying to hide it, or if she just didn’t care who heard. She would sit on her bed for what seemed like hours, clutching something in her hands as she heaved.

I snuck into my parents’ bedroom once to find what it was Mom was always holding. Whatever it was, she kept it tucked in a box beneath the bed. I opened the box to find it stuffed with paper ticket stubs. Paper stubs for shows and concerts were a rarity even in my mom’s youth, but some places still had them for sale at the merch counters as special mementos. On the backs of the stubs were various messages in my mom’s handwriting:

_‘High School graduates! We did it! P & W’_

_‘Happy 16 th, Squirt! P & W’_

_‘Wyatt and Katie sitting on a beam, K-I-S-S-I-N-G_ _😉_ _P & W & K’_

_‘First official outing of the Cousins Concert Crew!!!! P & W’_

I recalled what my uncle Wyatt had said about my mom taking him out to see a bunch of concerts back before the FCP got stricter on security measures. There had to be around twenty tickets in the box spanning the course of over a decade. I could only bring myself to read the messages on a few of them before I forced the lid back on the box and shoved it under the bed.

I never had the desire to look through the box again.

* * *

Sometimes there were days I’d come across my dad crying, too. When he was alone, I would slowly open the door to his study and peer at him until he beckoned me over. He would hold me tight, and we’d rock back and forth before he’d calm down. When he was with my mom, I didn’t bother going in the room - I knew it wouldn’t help. It was like all the happiness would get sucked from my body to try and feed the thing taking over my mother, and no matter how much I gave, it was never enough.

 _“Please, Poppy,”_ Dad would say. _“Just please talk to me.”_

_“This isn’t what they would want.”_

_“Your daughter is growing up without you.”_

I felt a little more of myself chip away with every passing day. There was less of me in every smile.

By the time I started high school, there was nothing left.

Every now and again, I would get the urge to try and gain something back. At first that was ditching classes and trying to feel _something_ when I spent my days sneaking into the movies or playing games for hours at a VR café. I only got away with this for a few days before my parents got involved; I only got away with it for a few _weeks_ before I finally stopped ditching classes when Cindy felt the need to step in.

 _“If you get kicked out of school, who’s going to sit with me at lunch?”_ Cindy had said.

I was signed up to join Cindy on the cheerleading squad. It was easy enough for her to talk me into it; I no longer had the heart to fight much of anything. The easiest thing to do was to lean into muscle memory I’d picked up over the years both from gymnastics and forcing myself to fit into places where I had no right to be. I excelled, joining Cindy as the only other freshman on the varsity cheerleading squad.

I felt nothing.

Everything about who I was molded around how I was perceived at school. At Lancaster High, Ellie was the chipper girl with the quick wit and a smile stuck to her face. She could always be seen with her best friends Cindy and Sam, walking arm-and-arm through the cafeteria while she told a joke or talked about an exciting piece of gossip. It would be considered a slow week if Ellie got sent to the principal’s office less than three times; she had a habit of hiding classmates’ belongings in unusual places, goofing off in class, and pulling pranks like throwing water balloons from the roof and binding teachers’ cars in plastic-wrap. Her grades were _just_ good enough to keep her on the squad and out of detention, but the teachers quickly learned trying to get Ellie to do anything beyond the bare minimum would be met with an eye roll and indifferent shrug. The adults’ perceptions of Ellie were generally pretty fixed, but how she was perceived among her peers had a wider range. If one was speaking politely, Ellie was a jokester and a flirt.

In non-polite terms, I was called a number of things which I tried really, _really_ hard to let bother me just so I’d feel something.

It never worked.

Rumors would fly when I dated the boy tutoring me in English, then a girl from the cheerleading squad, then that junior from drama class with the black lipstick, then the tennis team captain. There would be a whirlwind of matching Mage Mods, gifts, and secret rendezvous behind the bleachers or in the stairwells. Every new partner thought I was fun on the surface … until later confessing I was about as deep as a sidewalk puddle. No true connections were ever made, and more often than not, the relationships would end in a spectacular fashion when I’d grow bored and shower someone new with my affection. I burned a lot of bridges, but the blaze was entertaining enough for others to keep watching.

Within the chaos, the girl at the center of all the attention hoped someone, or something, would break through and finally stick. If there was enough romance, drama, or even scorn, maybe the emotions would wiggle through the cracks in the wall I’d put up.

They never did.

* * *

I was kept busy. Life was easier when I was always running from class, to practice, to tutoring, to hangout sessions. I almost never had to be home except to sleep. The only time I came home from school at a reasonable time was when my parents made the unusual request to talk over dinner.

_“Your mom and I … we … it’s not that we don’t love you, Ellie, we want you to know that.”_

Yeah, I’d seen that coming. It was obvious after a certain point my parents were going to split. They’d been in separate bedrooms for a while and never spoke to each other unless they noticed I was around. They’d been doing a delicate dance for some time, and the music had finally puttered out.

I made the decision to stay with my mom. Dad’s architecture firm had another branch in Kokomo City, and he’d accepted a promotion which would move him there. Taking the bullet train to his new house nestled in suburbia wasn’t too bad, so I’d go to visit every weekend. Things with Dad got better after he moved. It was like we were both finally able to breathe, although for me it was simply like taking a gasp of air before continuing to drown. Dad wanted me to consider moving in with him, but I told him I didn’t want to change schools.

This was only partially true.

Despite it all, I couldn’t leave Mom. I knew on some level I should be afraid of what would happen to my mom if left alone in that house. Mom could still take care of herself, but it was possible the only reason she _tried_ was because I was there.

I made a point of heading back to that house every evening to say a few snippets to Mom about how school went. We would sit across the kitchen table at dinner and use our net gear glasses to look right through each other. When it came time to head upstairs, I would do my best not to let my eyes linger on the frames in the stairwell that were now nothing but blank screens. Sometimes I would catch glimpses of my reflection; I didn’t recognize the girl looking back at me.

I would feel nothing.

* * *

When I turned fifteen, Dad let me throw a Quinceañera at his house. It was everything I learned I should want – loud music, lots of people, outrageous dresses, tons of junk food, and a DJ. My dad even hired a graphics designer for the net gear decorations, and the house and backyard sparkled with digital fireworks and dancers and floating gems that pulsed with the music.

Not to be outdone, I was the flashiest thing at the party. My ball gown shifted between electric blue, seafoam green, and bubblegum pink depending on the lighting. The Mage Mod I had on was a pair of enormous feathered wings sprouting from my back. I’d braided my hair in a long, intricate plait fit for a queen.

However, looks alone wouldn’t keep a party going. I pulled my classmates onto the dance floor amid giggles and cries of surprise. I talked to everyone, thanking them for coming and making plans to hang out. I laughed, and I sang, and I danced.

I also felt nothing.

The party hadn’t been going on for very long when Dad found me listening to my friend Cindy complaining about another girl showing up wearing the same dress. There was no objection on my part when he pulled me away, and the two of us squeezed between partygoers in the crowded living room until we reached the study.

Like the rest of the new house, the study was nearly twice the size of the one my dad had before. The gleaming white walls and high ceilings reminded me more of a fancy art museum than a home. It was possible that my dad’s affection for it only went so far as the house being designed by a senior member of his architecture firm.

On the plus side, my dad was a creature of comforts and didn’t consider skimping on cozy furniture. I let out a content sigh as I took a seat in one of two squishy armchairs facing an electric fireplace. The fireplace wasn’t on, since it was mid-summer, but I appreciated the ambiance.

“I know we just did presents,” Dad said, shutting out the sounds of the party as he closed the door, “but I found this by the front door, and I figured you’d want to check it out.”

“Just sitting out there?” I said, the poofy material of my dress rustling as I sat up. “You sure it isn’t a glitter bomb or something?”

“You don’t think I already took a peek?” Dad said, handing the small box over with a smile.

I returned the smile before looking down at the box. It wasn’t wrapped, and was in a simple plastic container with holes in the sides, which made it optimal for being carried via drone.

“Who’s this from?” I said, lifting the lid.

“Not sure,” Dad said with a shrug. “But what’s inside certainly seems like a present, so I thought you might be able to figure out who’d want you to have it.”

The lid was pulled away, and immediately the item within began to sparkle. It was a necklace with a silver chain; an array of tiny flashing lights within cuts of deep blue glass strung between the links, twinkling like stars.

I froze. I felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over my head. Before I knew it, my vision started to grow blurry.

_I’m nine years old; Qiana and I are playing dress-up with her mom’s fancy cocktail dresses and jewelry. She let me wear the necklace that looked like pieces plucked from the night sky. I braided her hair. Qiana met my eyes in the reflection of the mirror and gave me a gap-toothed smile._

Something was different.

“Ellie?” Dad said, sounding concerned. “Xuxu, what’s the matter?”

A tear fell from my face onto the necklace. I picked it up and pulled out the tissue paper it’d been nestled in. My fingers roved about the box for something, _anything,_ with text. Anything that would confirm this necklace was from her.

“Ellie?”

_Qiana had put a tangle of flowers on my upper lip. She clapped her hands over her mouth to try and contain her laughter as I sputtered._

_‘You’re silly, Ellie.’_

“I am, huh?” I said. I used my wrist to wipe away the dampness around my eyes, and a black streak of mascara came away when I pulled it back. I chuckled at the sight.

I lifted the necklace and clipped it around my neck. “I really am silly.”

“Huh?” Dad said, clearly lost.

The box dropped to the floor as I stood. I moved past my dad, my shoes clunking over the rug before I flung open the door.

“Ellie!”

I didn’t look back as I pushed through the crowd. A few more people said my name in greeting, but I continued to elbow everyone aside before I finally reached the back door. My heels sunk into the grass as I stumbled onto the lawn, but I found solid footing again as I made it to the dance floor installed earlier that morning. I crossed it with purpose, tiles lighting up underfoot, until I reached the DJ booth.

“Hey, birthday girl!” the DJ said, her Mage Mod flashing a colorful aura that pulsed with every beat to the music. “Got a special request?”

“Yeah, can I make an announcement?” I asked, lifting up my skirt as I stepped up to her level. The DJ smirked, and she moved her hands through the air, causing the music to dim.

“All right, people!” the DJ said, picking up a mic. “We got a special message from the birthday girl!”

Cheers erupted around me. I hammed it up by flipping my hair over my shoulder and striking a confident pose.

“OK, you guys ready?!” I said as I was handed the mic. Screams of affirmation met my ears.

“The earliest known dinosaurs appeared during the Triassic Period approximately two hundred and fifty million years ago!”

There was a beat of silence. A few confused chuckles drifted through the crowd.

My smile stretched from ear-to-ear as I held up four fingers, “Scientists can estimate the height of a dinosaur by using a rough estimate of leg length, which they get by multiplying the dinosaur’s footprint length by four!”

There were more chuckles this time as a few people decided they were in on the perceived joke.

“Go, professor Ellie!” someone shouted from the back. The crowd erupted in laughter.

“Based on CT scans of _Parasaurolophus_ skulls,” I said, shouting over the merriment, “they think it sounded kinda like a fog horn! Like this!”

I lowered my voice and let out a low bellow into the mic. More laughter and cheering rose through the crowd, a few kids joining in to form a chorus of loud bellows and honks. The DJ at my side had a smile plastered on her face, torn between amusement and concern as her eyes darted between me and the other kids.

“Last … fun … fact!” I said between gulps for air as I caught my breath. “ _Dromiceiomimus_ could run at speeds of up to … up to sixty kilometers per hour! Making it the fastest dinosaur! None of us can run that fast, even though I once knew someone who got close.” My smile wavered before I plowed on. “But even so! I won’t fault anyone for trying to match _Dromiceiomimus’_ speed on their way out!”

There was another round of laughter. The sound died down, then transformed into confused whispers as I stood looking over everyone with a genial expression.

“Bye!” I said, waving my free hand in the air. “I’m going to go put on my pajamas and eat cake in front of the TV until I want to barf. Thank you all for coming! Grab a gift bag on the way out!”

No one moved as they glanced between each other or watched me as if trying to determine if this was part of a joke. This was fair, it being me and all.

“No, really,” I said, continuing to wave. “I’m tired and want to lie down – please leave! Grab some snacks if you want!”

Waves of kids who were practically strangers to me began to trickle through the side gates. A few of them came up to the stage and thanked me for the party. Fewer still seemed amused by my antics and wanted to make plans to hang out later. It was funny how few of the kids at my party were ones I actually liked.

I left the befuddled DJ to her task of packing up her gear hours before planned. My heels were kicked off my feet and landed somewhere in the bushes along the side of the house. I met my dad with a grin as he watched me from the back door with a worried expression.

“Xuxu, are you alright?”

“I’m _starving,”_ I said, stepping past my dad as he moved aside. “There’s still pizza left, right? And where’s the cake?”

“Still in the fridge,” a voice to my left said. I looked into the living room to see Cindy and Sam. Cindy was watching me with crossed arms and a raised brow while Sam was tugging at her green dress in a nervous fashion.

“We, um …” Sam said, catching herself and putting her hands behind her back. “We thought you … are you feeling … would it be OK if we hang out here for a while, with you? We just … I mean, only if you want.”

I was momentarily taken aback. A grin crept up my face, “You guys down for an all-night Puffy Pets marathon?”

Cindy’s one raised eyebrow became two. She and Sam exchanged a glance. Between the pair, she was the first one to break, and Cindy covered her mouth with a snort.

“I swear I will _never_ figure you out,” Cindy said. She put her hands on her hips and lifted her chin. “You got PJs we can borrow, right? I’d die before getting cake on this dress.”

I rolled my eyes as I turned toward the stairs, “You told me you hated that dress because Tanya wore the same one.”

“But Brian didn’t tell _Tanya_ she looked good in this color,” Cindy said as she started to follow after me.

“Oh no, I’m done with that!” I said, waving my arms. “No more talk about Brian, or Tanya, or whoever! Tonight is going to be all about Puffy Pets and cake and me getting changed into something where I can actually see my feet! I’ve nearly tripped over this stupid dress, like, ten times!”

“But it’s so pretty!” Sam said, following us up the stairs.

The rest of the night was spent watching TV, eating junk food, and braiding hair. It was nothing like the “wild time” I’d thought I was supposed to be having as a cool teenager. Most of the fifteen-year-olds I knew wouldn’t find lying on their stomach and bumping shoulders with their friends while singing along to the opening of a kids’ show all that fun … but I did.

I felt something.

After hours of TV and more slices of cake than I’d want to admit, Cindy and Sam had fallen asleep, the three of us draped on piles of couch cushions and blankets strewn out over the living room floor. I was still buzzing from the excitement of the evening (and more than a fair amount of sugar); sleep was the last thing on my mind. Instead, I rolled over to stare up at the ceiling. Reaching for the weight around my neck, I pulled the necklace from beneath my shirt collar.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. I gripped the necklace hard enough for it to poke into my palm. It was painful, but part of me wanted to make sure it was real – that everything I was feeling in that moment was real.

“Qiana, I’m so sorry. I miss you so much – I wish you would come back.”

In the span of a single day almost six years prior, everything had been ripped away from me. The only way I’d been able to survive since then was to do my best to feel nothing. Because as soon as I felt _something,_ I was afraid I would end up like my mother, and I couldn’t bear to be that. I would rather be filled with nothing than be filled with despair.

Despite the efforts that my subconscious had been putting in to protect me, something shifted that night. Qiana had given me a gift far more important than the necklace. Being able to really _feel_ something again made me decide I no longer wanted to be filled with nothing.

I was going to let it all in – both the good and the bad.

* * *

The one and only big fight my mother and I ever had was on the sixth anniversary of the death of my family on the Arno. I told her I wouldn’t go to the memorial; I didn’t want to be reminded of my Uncle Wyatt, and how his breach of protocol had led to the death of his entire family. If he’d done what he was _supposed_ to, he should’ve been the only one to die. What happened to Aunt Kate, Caleb, and Oliver was all his fault. They would still be with us if it wasn’t for him.

I finally voiced a notion that had been tumbling around in the back of my mind for some time; I’d just been too apathetic to care. Now, though … I cared.

This was the one and only time my mother almost struck me. She’d raised her hand to slap me across the cheek, but stopped herself at the last moment. I could tell she’d regretted the notion the second it happened. I had looked her in the eye, defiant. With my chin held high, I refused to yield.

My mother ended up going to the cemetery alone.

I kept my anger burning. I let it fuel me as I started my sophomore year in high school and declared I wanted to be an engineer for off-world ships. I wanted to make sure no more idiotic mistakes which could cost innocent lives would be made; not on my watch.

Less time was spent hanging out with friends as I joined the robotics club and a number of study groups. There were no more pranks or interruptions in class. The flashy Mage Mods fell away to a simple triangle on my right forearm. It was there for me to look at while I was taking notes or working on a project until the early hours of the morning. The symbol reminded me of Oliver. It reminded me of the boy who died because his father was careless; it reminded me there was only one of us left now who could become a hero.

It would be a lie to say I didn’t feel some disappointment from the changes that had to be made. My social circle shrunk significantly; many of the people I used to hang out with weren’t a fan of the Ellie who would rather do homework than stay out all hours of the night. It also didn’t help much when I quit cheerleading so I could spend more time focusing on getting my grades up. I was forming new friend groups in robotics, but the comradery of a team sport was hard to beat. This was probably why my friends who were still on the squad were among the few who were able to coax me into the occasional social gathering.

This was the only reason I found myself at the pier one afternoon walking arm-and-arm with Cindy amid a gaggle of chatting boys and girls. The cheerleading squad had gotten into regionals and wanted me along as an ‘honorary member’ while they went out to celebrate.

I had to admit getting some fresh air for a change was nice. The pier also carried some bittersweet memories which left me a little nostalgic. It was close enough to FCP headquarters that I had gone on occasion with my parents after our visits with the Arno family. Qiana and I had gone a few times, too; playing tag behind the brightly-colored food stalls and riding the Ferris wheel over and over while we ate cotton candy and popcorn. We would, without fail, play every one of the carnival games they had to offer. We would also, without fail, walk away with our allowances depleted and not a single prize between us to show for our efforts. I’d always had the time of my life, nonetheless.

“So, I heard Trevor wants to ride the Ferris Wheel with you,” Cindy said, squeezing my arm. This distracted me from the pink horizon spreading over the ocean as the sun began to set.

“That’s cool,” I said. “I haven’t talked to Trevor much since last semester.”

“You _know_ what I mean,” Cindy said, using her free hand to toss her silky dark hair over her shoulder. “He’s had a crush on you since your birthday party.”

“I don’t have time,” I said with a sigh. “I barely have time to see you and Sam, and you guys are like, way more important.”

“Yeah, we are,” Cindy said, bumping her hip against mine. “But I think you should at least let Trevor take you to Homecoming. Give the poor boy _something.”_

“Shut up,” I said, laughing. Cindy and I continued to giggle as we walked. We were trailing behind the rest of the group and I craned my neck to see if I could spot any splashes of crimson letter vests through the crowd. Something caught the corner of my eye and I turned partially to inspect the person looking out over the ocean to my right. My eyes began to wander away, but I did a double take.

_Uncle Wyatt?!_

No. Not Uncle Wyatt. He had the same white hair, but the boy gazing over the ocean looked to be about my age. He also didn’t have the same ruddy nose as my uncle, and his eye color was wrong, besides. It was …

_What?_

“Ellie?”

Cindy furrowed her brow when I looked back at her. “What is it?” she said. “You OK?”

I nodded. My head slowly turned to look back at the boy. He was wearing a dark brown blazer, and I could make out a blue tie peaking above a tan vest. It was certainly a school uniform, although I thought it was kind of weird he’d be wearing a blazer in this weather. It was getting colder, but still much too warm during the day to be busting out a jacket.

“Um … I just … I need to do something,” I said. “I’ll catch up.”

Cindy’s brows rose above her net gear glasses. She glanced over my shoulder and her expression shifted. “OK,” she said, giving me a playful poke in the side. “Go see to your … _something.”_

I was left standing alone as the crowd parted around me. The boy didn’t seem to notice there was a person roughly ten feet away staring at him like he had two heads. His grey eyes never left the water, and after a moment, I could swear he didn’t even blink.

_Stop it._

No, that was just me getting into my own head. In fact, that’s what this whole thing was. This was crazy. There was no way. There was absolutely no way in the galaxy this kid could be who I thought he was. No matter who he looked like … Who he looked _just_ like. It was impossible. Literally impossible.

Despite my thoughts, my feet moved forward. I closed the distance until I was almost within arm’s reach. I put my hands up on the wooden railing and shot the boy sideways glances as I tried to play off the fact I was ogling him in the creepiest way possible. Astoundingly, the boy still didn’t seem aware of my presence; perhaps he simply didn’t care.

_Alright, time to make some random guy think you’re crazy._

“Hi.”

The boy didn’t answer. He didn’t even look in my direction. I cleared my throat, wondering if maybe he thought I was talking to someone else.

“Hi there,” I said, leaning forward a little in an attempt to catch his eye. Ever so slowly, the boy’s gaze tracked to the side. I straightened as his attention landed on me. When I got a full view of his face, my heart stopped.

“Oliver?”

The boy didn’t react. He was looking at me now, but almost as if he was seeing through me. He wasn’t wearing net gear glasses, so I knew he had to be looking _at_ me. Yet … he wasn’t.

“Oliver,” I said again, my voice soft. I fought back the sensation of my throat going tight. “It’s … it’s me, Ellie.”

Nothing appeared to change about the boy’s demeanor.

 _Get out of there,_ a voice in my head said. _You made a mistake. This guy’s just messing with you. Go before you look like an idiot._

I took a step forward. I was now well within this boy’s personal space, and part of me was squirming in humiliation. I fought to keep the determined expression on my face.

“Oliver, it’s me,” I said, placing a hand on my chest. “Dino Girl. We were going to find the Nova Ruby together, remember?”

It was like watching the sunrise. The transformation was slow – a light shining behind the boy’s eyes accented by a furrowed brow. He took a step back, regarding me as if I’d popped out of thin air. The action caused a wide smile to spread across my face.

“I promise you I’m not one of those stupid Wargnals, or Werpals, or whatever those things were you used to talk about,” I said. Despite his serious demeanor, the boy’s expression made me laugh. The tightness in my throat made it so it didn’t sound like much of a laugh, but it was the first one I’d had in a long time which felt genuine.

My laughter died down, and the boy and I stood in silence. I was doing my best not to cry as he looked me up and down. It was like he was having a hard time believing I was actually standing there. To be fair, so was I. The situation was nothing short of a plot out of a sci-fi novel. Maybe even a horror story, if this boy was a ghost. Although, Cindy had certainly seen him, which I figured ruled that one out.

The boy’s lips parted. I waited with baited breath as he moved to speak.

“Peter?” a voice said.

A man in an automated wheelchair rolled through the crowd. He had brunette hair, a large, pointed nose, and a small beard on his chin that curled upward. He also seemed to be regarding me in absolute puzzlement.

The chair came to a stop as the boy and I stared at the man in surprise. He seemed quite surprised himself, as if finding the boy talking to someone was the absolute last thing he could’ve imagined. Well, considering how talkative the boy was, I suppose that wasn’t a stretch.

“Sorry if I’m … uh … interrupting something, Peter,” the man said, smiling apologetically. “If you would like to keep conversing with this young lady, I can certainly go elsewhere.”

_Peter._

My eyes darted back to the boy. The two of us stared at one another with wide-eyed expressions. He lifted a hand and opened his mouth as if to speak. Whatever the boy was about to say seemed to die on his lips, and he lowered his arm. It was like an anvil dropped in my gut.

I felt like throwing myself over the railing. What had I been thinking? This kid never could’ve been Oliver. Not in a million years. All I accomplished was making an absolute fool out of myself. Worse, I’d gotten my hopes up.

“Uh … sorry, I just … um,” I said, backing away. “You … it was a mistake. I was just messing around. This was all just a joke.”

The light behind the boy’s eyes slowly retreated. The curious expression on his face went with it.

“Sorry,” I said, glancing at the man at my side. “Bye.”

I whipped around and jogged into the crowd. I kept a brisk pace, my breaths coming out in short bursts as if I’d just run a marathon.

_Stupid. Stupid. STUPID._

I wasn’t going to cry. I _couldn’t_ cry. There was no point crying over a complete stranger who happened to look just like my dead cousin. That Peter kid did nothing wrong. I probably just spoiled his nice trip to the pier with his dad or whatever. He didn’t deserve to have some unhinged weirdo going on about aliens and superheroes as if he knew what she was talking about … even if when I said those things …

I stopped.

_Don’t turn around. Don’t go back. You’ll only hurt yourself more. But …_

“Hey!”

I leapt into the air and let out a squeak. Despite being far outside the age range I needed to worry about a heart attack, I was still grateful I didn’t collapse to the walkway from the unexpected sound of Cindy’s voice. She broke away from a small crowd around a booth with an array of robotic pets to throw an arm around my shoulders. “How did it go with that hottie back there? Did you get his net gear ID?”

The wall around my heart went back up. I was able to plaster on a smile. “Yeah, no,” I said. “He was _so_ boring to talk to; I left as soon as I could.”

Cindy let out a disappointed groan, “Too bad. Some guys think they can get along on just looks.”

“Right?”

“Ugh, but his _eyes,”_ Cindy said, looking in the distance in a wistful fashion. “I’ve never seen grey eyes like that; I could dive right in there and swim forever.”

“You are _so_ weird,” I said, laughing. I tried to play off the fact that something about what she said was now itching in the back of my brain.

_'I’ve never seen grey eyes like that'_

And neither had I, really, aside from two people on the Arno who by all accounts were no longer with us.

“Hey, I just remembered I forgot to submit an assignment,” I said. “I’m gonna find somewhere to sit and do that real fast.”

“Ooh, look at Ms. Valedictorian slipping on schoolwork,” Cindy teased. She agreed to wait for me by the Ferris Wheel, and I found an open spot on a bench beside two men with a little girl seated between them. I watched the little girl dip her spoon into a small bowl of ice cream, humming in delight after each bite.

_How old would Caleb be now if …?_

I blinked, realizing one of the men was regarding me in a questioning manner.

“Your daughter is really cute,” I said, quickly looking away. I returned the warm ‘thanks’ I received with a smile, then went to focus on my task. I opened up my net gear memory, which I had recording on a 24-hour cycle. After 24-hours, everything I’d seen through the glasses would be erased and replaced with new data. This was pretty common for students like myself who wanted to record lectures, and I had special files on my hard drive at home to save anything important. It was to one of these files I sent the entire clip of when I’d talked to the boy who looked like Oliver. I knew I was getting dangerously close to ‘creepy stalker’ territory, but I had to follow my gut.

_It’s nothing. This whole thing is nothing. I just … I have to be sure it’s nothing._

* * *

It turned out to be a good thing I’d backed up the clip from the pier because out of nowhere my net gear glasses died overnight. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get them to power on the next morning.

I spent over an hour pacing the length of my room as I talked with tech support using my outdated net gear bracelet. An attempt at manual resets on my glasses did nothing. I tried three different charging ports. After a few minutes of digging, I came across a cable to physically connect them to the bracelet, but still no luck. The conclusion reached was that something inside must’ve had a critical error, and I’d be better off just getting a new pair than bothering to spend the money trying to figure out what had happened.

“Considering this seems to be a manufacturing error,” the tech support rep said, “we’d be more than happy to transfer you credit for a new pair. All you need to do is send us the malfunctioning glasses.”

“Really?” I said, not expecting this level of compensation. “OK, cool. I can just drop the glasses off at any net gear store?”

“No need,” the rep said. “We have a drone on the way. It should be there any minute, and you can just give it the glasses.”

“Alright,” I said. “Thank you; I’ve never heard of you guys doing that, before.”

“This is a special case,” the rep said. “Unfortunately, all of your data from the day before will be lost. Well, unless you already backed anything up from yesterday afternoon?”

Something in my stomach twisted.

_‘from yesterday afternoon.’_

_Why did yesterday afternoon matter?_

I used to be bad at keeping secrets. That had changed.

“No,” I said. Even though no one could see it, I smiled. “I went to the pier, and … ugh, I actually made a really dumb mistake and embarrassed myself. I would rather forget about everything that happened yesterday. Like, you guys couldn’t even get any of that back if you wanted to, right?”

“No ma’am, I’m afraid not.”

“Yeah, no, it’s fine,” I said. “As long as I still have my biology lecture from the day before, it’s fine.”

“Anything you backed up prior to twenty-four hours ago should be safe and sound,” the rep said. “It’s good to hear you didn’t lose anything important. In that case, we’ll just transfer the credit to your account as soon as we receive the glasses. The drone should be arriving to your residence now. Is there anything else I can help you with, Ms. Naxario?”

“No, thank you,” I said, my smile widening at the little drone hovering outside my window. “You’ve been a great help!”

This wasn’t a lie. Whoever I spoke to had helped me out more than they knew. They made me think maybe it wasn’t a coincidence my glasses had fried overnight. They made me think that maybe … just _maybe …_

The boy at the pier was Oliver.


	5. Chapter 5

I never received credit for my net gear glasses. After a week, I made up a story about accidentally dropping them in the ocean and being too embarrassed to say anything about it. When my dad took me to a net gear outlet to get a new pair, I casually asked if they could be delivered via drone once the custom frames were completed.

_“No, unfortunately; there’ve been too many instances of theft. The current policy is that you have to pick up them up in person with an ID.”_

The news from the store associate made me feel elated … and terrified. The realization that whoever I had spoken to before couldn’t have been a real net gear representative helped to support my theory concerning Oliver. However, it also meant that whoever it was had been watching us at the pier. On top of that, they’d been able to disable my glasses, and somehow be the one who picked up when I dialed the net gear customer support line. They knew who I was … and where I lived.

 _“Are you OK?”_ Sam had asked one day at lunch. She and Cindy had exchanged a nervous glance before looking back to me. It probably had something to do with my sandwich being left untouched while my attention was locked on every new person entering the cafeteria. My hunt for unfamiliar faces came to an abrupt halt.

_Great. If they noticed I’m being weird, then who knows who else did, too._

_“It’s nothing,”_ I’d said, picking up my sandwich despite having no appetite. _“Just … stuff with my mom again; you know.”_

I made a mental note after that to be less obvious. I’d become downright jumpy; strangers were always being watched out of the corner of my eye. When my friend’s and I would go out, their conversations would fall away as I strained my ears to pick up anything even remotely suspicious in the background. I started declining most of their invitations to hang out outside our homes. If I was being watched, were they? Cindy had seen Oliver, too. Was she in danger?

I had never experienced this sort of fear before. The fear of being watched by someone who you had no idea of their level of malicious intent was, to me, worse than knowing I was being watched by someone who would kill me at a moment’s notice. At least with the latter I’d know where I stand. As of now, I had no idea what to expect. Was I being watched or not? Would doing or saying the wrong thing have any sort of consequences? Would this person stop at just going after me, or were my friends and family at risk, too?

That last question was the one that hit me the hardest.

_My family may be in danger. Oliver, Caleb, Aunt Kate, and …_

_Uncle Wyatt._

If Oliver was alive, then Uncle Wyatt … that story about how they all died may not have been true. The story we’d been told by the Arno captain could’ve been a lie. But why? Would that mean the explosion never happened? Did Uncle Wyatt really not make a mistake?

Memories of a wry grin, a gentle tone, and a Santa outfit that wasn’t fooling anybody floated to the surface. I recalled my uncle poking fun at my mom for the nose chain she had when she was my age, and the awestruck look on his face when I sat on the beach, holding a tablet above my head so my family on the Arno could see the falling snow. I remembered how he used to call me Ellie Bean, and how he regarded me with as much warmth as he did his sons.

I felt a little like my mom when I closed myself in my room so I could cry alone. My insides brewed a concoction of guilt, self-pity, confusion, and sadness. The fire burning me up from the inside over the past few months was finally dying out. I almost didn’t know what to do with myself now that it was gone. I was so used to having a villain I needed to fight against, it was like I now lacked a purpose.

 _Your uncle Wyatt isn’t the bad guy,_ a voice in my head said. _That doesn’t mean there isn’t one, though._

My family needed saving. Somehow, they were on Earth (that one I was still working out). Somehow … they were alive. My family was alive, and I was going to find out why someone was trying to keep me from finding out. I was going to find Oliver again and help him remember the two of us made a promise to look out for one another.

The Nova Ruby was going to have to wait. Dino Girl and Space Boy crossover issue number one was instead going to be about Dino Girl rescuing Space Boy from the evil Warnapals … or whatever they may be.

* * *

Not knowing _how,_ exactly, I was being watched left me worried about leaving the footage of my meeting with Oliver on my tablet’s hard drive. External storage gadgets weren’t common, but I knew my robotics’ instructor had a few on hand in her desk drawer. I palmed a device when I stayed behind one afternoon to help pick up the classroom. The guilt churning in my stomach was partially satiated as I did my best to be a model student and bring the class my (albeit lousy) attempt at an apple cobbler. To be fair, my robotics’ instructor was a super nice lady and I’m sure she would understand my need for the device. I kind of wished I could tell her what was going on, but I didn’t want to risk her being watched, too.

The idea of telling my parents about my meeting with Oliver also floated around my subconscious on more than one occasion. After some thought, I decided against it. I didn’t want them to get mixed up in things if they went bad. There was also the possibility I really had been mistaken about what had happened that day. Maybe there was a boy out there who just so happened to live near me, and just _so happened_ to look just like my deceased cousin. It was a long shot, but not impossible. It was probably more probable than Oliver actually being alive and on Earth, in any case.

I ended up keeping things to myself as I downloaded my footage from the pier onto the external drive. Utilizing equipment from my robotics’ class, I opened up one of the chunks of blue glass on the necklace I received a few months ago from Qiana. The strip of tiny lights within had to be shortened, but I made enough room to nestle the drive in the newly vacant space. When I finally placed the soldering iron aside and the necklace was fully reassembled, the end result was one of the chunky glass pieces not quite sparkling as vibrantly as its neighbors. This didn’t bother me too much; the average person would be quicker to blame a failing power cell than anything else.

With the backup securely hidden, I turned my focus to reviewing the clip I had saved on my hard drive. I had to be careful, since it was possible whatever internet searches I was making might be getting monitored. Someone had been able to hack my net gear glasses, so I wouldn’t put it past them being able to do the same to my browser. There was a risk they could get into my hard drive as well, but I did my best to put what protections I could in place. At the very least, it seemed whoever the hacker had been only bothered with my glasses and didn’t have any interest in my tablet. As long as I didn’t give them a reason to have an interest, I could only hope it stayed that way.

_Alright, here we go._

The clip was hard to watch the first few times. Doubt wriggled in my mind from the way Oliver both was and wasn’t himself. He was so _lifeless;_ empty … like a shell. It was the opposite of how he used to be.

_Was this really him?_

Oliver hadn’t reacted right away when I said his name. But he didn’t react initially when the man who came up to us called him Peter, either. There were only a few seconds of the clip which displayed Oliver showing any kind of emotion. I replayed them over and over, scrutinizing the way his eyes widened, and his jaw hung slightly open.

_“Oliver, it’s me; Dino Girl. We were going to find the Nova Ruby together, remember?”_

During those few seconds, Oliver was immediately recognizable. There was _life._ There was surprise, and curiosity. He had looked me up and down wearing the same expression from when he studied the seagull we saw back on the beach. It was like I was a myth; something he’d only ever heard about from legends suddenly popping into life before him.

_He knew exactly what I meant when I talked about Dino Girl and the Nova Ruby. That wasn’t the face of someone who just straight up thought I was crazy._

Maybe all this time he’d thought _I_ was dead. Maybe like me, Oliver had been reevaluating what he thought he knew.

 _Then that old guy came over and ruined it,_ I thought with a huff.

The man who referred to Oliver as “Peter” was harder for me to figure out. If there was someone who didn’t want me to know about Oliver, why did that man have no problem allowing Oliver and I to interact? He seemed genuine when he made the offer to leave so we could continue to talk (or I could continue to talk while Oliver just stared). It made no sense. Was he not connected to whoever fried my glasses? But he had to be, in order to be calling Oliver by an alias.

Thinking too hard about the man made my head hurt. I decided to shift focus onto something I had a feeling I might be able to actually follow up on.

_Tan vest, white undershirt, blue tie, brown blazer._

It _had_ to be a school uniform; one I could swear I’d seen before. There’d been over thirty schools participating during last year’s cheerleading regional championships. I was almost positive one of the schools competing had classmates who’d come to support their team wearing similar outfits.

It would’ve been suspicious if I started doing internet searches on various school uniforms in the area. What _wouldn’t_ be suspicious was me going to support my friends at this year’s cheerleading regionals.

* * *

“Go Wombats!”

The crowded auditorium erupted in applause. Around twenty figures in crimson and silver uniforms stood in wide stances at the center of the arena, their arms held high in a “Y” formation. Well, the ones who weren’t using their hands to balance a few of their teammates on their shoulders.

 _“And that was the Lancaster High School fighting Wombats!”_ a voiced boomed over the speakers. More shouts of encouragement cut through the air as the cheerleading squad broke formation. There were a few bows, some blown kisses directed at the recording drones, and a lot of waves as the group jogged off the court as the next squad entered through a side door.

“They did so good!” Sam said, hopping to her feet. The crimson jersey she was wearing had a wombat on the back looking about as threatening as a wombat could muster (which wasn’t much). The mascot peeked at me through a curtain of red hair as Sam gazed around the crowded bleachers to confirm where our classmates had gone. The elated expression on her face shifted when she noticed I wasn’t standing. “Ellie?”

“Yeah, they were awesome!” I said, glancing her way before my eyes went back to the squad clad in blue and white getting into position. “Tell Cindy her toe-touch basket toss was flawless.”

“You’re not coming?” Sam said. I fought down a wave of irritation from the defeated tone in her voice.

“This is the first year I get to watch everyone!” I said, my practiced lie rolling out in a smooth manner. “I’ve really been looking forward to it. I’ll come sit with everyone after the last squad goes, OK?”

A pout touched Sam’s lips. For a moment I thought I may have gotten away with the excuse without a fight until her brows came together.

“Couldn’t you watch from where we are?” Sam asked.

_Dang it_

My smile wavered, “I just don’t want to miss anything. Plus, you know Cindy will want a full report of our competition. Tell her she doesn’t have to worry about hurrying back after getting food since I’ll fill her in.”

Doubt still swam in Sam’s eyes, but she nodded, “Yeah, OK. I’ll send you a message to let you know where we’re sitting.”

“Thanks!” I said. Guilt squirmed in my gut. “And make sure you get me some nachos, too!”

The attempt at defusing the tension worked as Sam chuckled. I watched her go for a moment before returning my attention forward. I kept my focus on the cheerleading squad … up until the moment they started to perform. As soon as music filled my ears, my eyes swept over the crowd. Without Sam sitting at my side, I could be a little less concerned about how it was obvious I wasn’t paying any attention to the backflips and various tosses going on below. What I was looking for was who in the crowd was shouting the loudest for each team; hopefully a group of people dressed in tan vests, brown blazers, and blue ties.

I had spotted a few people that I _thought_ might match that description. A couple of guys with white button-ups and ties of varying colors were sitting on the opposite side of the arena. They were part of a group with a few other kids dressed in reds and golds. No one in that group had gone bananas yet, so I figured their school hadn’t come up to perform. They were my only lead at the moment, so I could do nothing more than hope more of them would come out of the woodwork when their team came out.

Three more squads went through their routines. My knee started to bounce and I kept correcting myself from chewing on my nails. To an outside observer one would think I had gambled away my life savings over the results of a regional cheerleading competition. The parents of some kid from La Rancho High even tapped on my shoulder and offered me a bottle of water. Once I had assured the kind strangers I wasn’t on the verge of having an anxiety attack, I did my best to school my features.

_There are only two more schools. Did I miss them? Are they not here? What do I–_

_“Now coming to the court, let’s hear it for the mighty Pines from South Pines Academy!”_

The group I’d been keeping in the corner of my eye bound to their feet. They clapped, yelled, and whistled as a cheerleading squad in reds and golds skipped onto the court. My eyes focused between these two groups for a moment before darting about.

_Someone … Anyone … There!_

There was a small cluster of high school kids standing on my side of the arena near the entrance below. Among them was a tall boy with blonde hair, broad shoulders, and sporting an outfit seemingly identical to what Oliver had been wearing at the pier.

I leapt out of my seat as South Pines’ upbeat music blared in my ears. The action of me getting up and scrambling down the bleacher steps during a performance was incredibly rude, and even in my frazzled state I couldn’t help but feel a little shamefaced. My main focus, however, was getting to the stairwell and making my way down to the ground floor before South Pines was done performing. I didn’t want to gamble on the group still being there when their team was no longer up, and I needed to get to my targets before they had a chance to dissolve into the crowd.

The landing and stairwell were packed. Spectators who were waiting until the performance was over to go back to their seats chatted in hushed tones as I squeezed between them. I made a hasty apology as I almost made a lady drop her popcorn, but the disapproving sound she made soon faded into the genial hum of the crowd. When I reached the wide corridor on the first floor, my heart started beating hard in my chest.

_“And that was the mighty Pines of South Pines Academy!”_

The thunderous sound of applause and stomping feet filled my ears. I picked up the pace, ignoring the exclamations I received as I elbowed people out of the way.

As the applause faded, a gaggle of people exited the arena and cut across the hallway toward the front door. My eyes roved over the crowd. I spotted a shock of blond hair.

“Hey!”

The guy didn’t hear me. Made sense, considering the announcer’s booming voice hamming up the introduction of the final squad made me far from the loudest thing in the area.

“Hey!”

I joined the cascade of former spectators as I exited the building. If I hopped up and down, I could spot the blonde guy as he descended the stairs toward the packed parking lot. He was chatting with a girl with short black hair who I was able to see a little better as I squirmed through the crowd to get closer. I made a frustrated sound and rushed down the steps.

“STOP!”

At the bottom of the stairs the blonde guy, amazingly, did just that. He turned, squinting at me through his net gear glasses in a questioning manner.

“H-hey,” I said, leaning against the stair railing. I was hoping it made me come off as casual, although in reality it was because I desperately needed to catch my breath.

“Um, hi,” the guy said. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

“We have now,” I said, holding out a hand. The guy exchanged a questioning glance with his friend, who shrugged. I was pleased to note the short girl at his side was also dressed in a white button up with a tie and tan vest, albeit missing the blazer.

The blond guy reached out to take my hand. “David,” he said, giving it a firm shake before quickly letting go.

“I’m Ellie,” I said. “You go to South Pines, right?”

“That’s right,” David said. He was looking at me with a heavy level of confusion. This was unfortunate, since this interaction would be _a lot_ easier if he showed signs of finding me attractive.

“Good, cuz that means you must know the area better than I do,” I said, tilting my head to the side with a smile. “It’ll make it easier for us to pick a place to go when I take you out for dinner.”

David’s expression went blank. He flinched when the girl at his side let out a snort.

“You’ve got to give her props for being smooth,” the girl said, chuckling.

David also chuckled, but there was much less genuine mirth behind it. “Uh, sorry,” David said. “That was … um, _nice,_ but I have a girlfriend.”

“Ah, I figured,” I said. I was a little disappointed my gamble hadn’t paid off. It would’ve been convenient to have an excuse to pick David’s brain about South Pines and the possibility of him knowing of a certain white-haired student. I had ultimately gotten what I needed, so it wasn’t an entire loss.

“Well, David of South Pines,” I said, turning away. “With a face like yours, I guess I’d be surprised if you didn’t have a girlfriend; I had to at least give it a shot.”

Another snort came from David’s friend.

“Really, Meisha?” I heard David say.

The coy smile fell from my face the second I fully turned around. I slowly walked up the steps, already lost in thought over my next move.

* * *

This part was going to hurt.

A lot.

I already hated myself for it. There must’ve been a better way. No matter how hard I tried though, I couldn’t think of one. This was all I had.

So, I had filled out my forms, went to my interview, and sat down across from my mom for dinner a few weeks after I’d gone to the cheerleading competition.

“I want to go live with Dad.”

Mom hadn’t fought me on it; she didn’t have it in her to do stuff like that, anymore. The fact that she so quickly accepted me wanting to leave made me feel worse than if she’d started to scream.

“I want to go to a school with a better robotics program,” I said, giving an explanation that was just as much of an effort to make myself feel better as it was for my mom. “The career field to work off-world is getting pretty competitive. My adviser said I should take my education more seriously if I want to have a chance. There were a couple of schools I applied to, and South Pines Academy had the best science and robotics department. They wanted me to do a project … and, um, I guess I did good on it. They … they let me in. Dad’s going to take care of the tuition. I can … I can start in the spring.”

“That’s wonderful, Ellie.”

“Thanks, mom.”

We didn’t speak anymore that night. I went up to my room and cried.

* * *

I made the decision not to say anything at school. Cindy, Sam, and I had been joined at the hip since we were ten. That was how it was supposed to stay through our High School graduation; it was an unsaid rule we’d always followed. Me breaking that rule was the highest form of treason.

Unfortunately for me, Cindy was observant. She immediately zeroed in on the fact I insisted going to homecoming without a date. The truth was I didn’t want to risk getting attached to someone new; saying goodbye at the end of the semester to the friends I already had was going to be hard enough. This decision to fly solo at homecoming was completely reasonable, but very “off brand” for Ellie Naxario. On top of that I came prepared with a reason not to go with any potential dates Cindy threw my way.

Cindy talked up our friend Matilda from the dressing room neighboring mine as we shopped for formal dresses. While we were at the shoe store to get heels matching the sparkling blue mermaid gown I’d picked out, she mentioned the cheerleading co-captain Anthony still needed a date. Even when the day of homecoming finally arrived and we sat side-by-side at the salon as Cindy had her hair styled in waves while my curls were straightened away, she couldn’t stop talking about how Sam’s older brother suddenly seemed ‘ _kinda cute’_ and how fun it would be to go to the dance with a senior.

 _“Matilda likes Aisha,”_ I’d said.

_“Didn’t you hear? Anthony already got a date.”_

_“Ew, you can’t be serious; Sam would KILL me.”_

So the night of homecoming, I was fifth-wheel along with my friends and their dates as we crammed together in Sam’s small car and picked up burgers through the drive-thru before hitting up the dance. I spent the evening dancing with whoever would say yes; deep blue material flowed about my ankles as I spun across the gym floor. There was always a smile on my face and a laugh bubbling up between comments of how impressed I was with everyone’s moves. I figured I was doing a pretty good job hiding how I was trying to commit as much of my surroundings to memory as I could.

There would only be a few more weeks where I could sit on the bleachers and joke around during breaks in P.E. class. I would miss shouting _‘Go Wombats!’_ when someone would fail to toss their trash in the bin and Sam would fight to hold in her laughter. There would be no more gossip over lunch about teachers or crushes or who was wearing what. This would be the last big get-together I’d have with everyone before leaving. Saying goodbye to the people I cared about was going to be tough; so tough my plan was to avoid doing it until the last moment possible at the end of the semester.

Cindy had other plans.

“What’s going on?”

She’d corned me coming out of the restroom. The hallway was empty save for the two of us; I wouldn’t be surprised if Sam and Cindy’s date, Jack, were on lookout duty.

“Well,” I said, smoothing the material of my dress. “If you really want to know, I just took way too long getting this dress out of the way so I could pee.”

Cindy crossed her arms over her deep green ball gown. Even with a scowl on her face, she was still hands-down the prettiest girl in school. “I don’t know what’s happening with you,” she said. “You don’t even talk to us anymore. This is the first time we’ve been out in weeks. And this … I don’t know what you’re doing out there, but you’re not acting like yourself. It’s like you’re _acting_ like acting like yourself.”

“Cindy, do you hear what you’re saying?”

“I’m not stupid, Ellie,” Cindy said, not budging an inch. “Neither is Sam. What’s going on?”

I dropped my gaze. There was a necklace of deep blue glass around my neck, and I ran a finger along one of the large, sparkling pieces before allowing my hand to drop to my side.

“I’m transferring to a different school in the spring.”

I didn’t have the courage to look Cindy in the eye. I had practiced my excuses – more times than I could count – but it still wouldn’t make this easier. Plus, I wasn’t ready. Not for what I had to say, but for what came after.

“Are you serious?” Cindy said. “If this is one of your jokes, Ellie, it isn’t funny.”

I didn’t say a word, only shaking my head.

“Why?”

“I …” I swallowed as my voice cracked. “I want to go live with my dad.”

I could see Cindy’s arms falling to her sides from the corner of my eye.

“In Kokomo City?” she said, barely above a whisper. I nodded.

I had told myself I would never be the one to leave. Uncle Wyatt, Aunt Kate, Caleb, and Oliver had left. Qiana had left. My mom had also left, in a way. I knew how much it hurt to have the ones you love be ripped away. I had never, _ever,_ wanted to do that to anyone.

_I’m sorry._

“I’m so–”

“Why would you do that, Ellie?!” Cindy said. Despite my better judgement, I looked up. My heart sank as I watched Cindy’s eyes grow dewy.

“Where are you gonna go, huh?” Cindy said, waving her arms. “Where are you gonna go that’s gonna be _so_ much better than here?!”

I hugged my elbows and shifted my weight from one foot to another. “South Pines Academy.”

Cindy froze. She stared at me, wide-eyed, for a moment that seemed to drag on forever. Eventually … she laughed.

“Now I know you’re joking,” Cindy said. “I know you’re joking, because I _know_ you would never transfer to the school that’s all over the news because of that girl who went there getting killed at their homecoming dance last week.”

My nails dug into my arms. “They don’t know that,” I said. “Those are only rumors. They’re saying all sorts of crazy things about what happened; some kid even thinks a robot kidnapped that girl. I’m sure whatever really happened wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“You can’t say “whatever really happened,”” Cindy said, using her fingers to make air quotes, “about a girl who legit got kidnapped! And you want to _go_ there?! You would rather be at that school, putting yourself in danger, then stay here with me?”

I failed at blinking back the tears as one escaped down my cheek. I wiped it away with the back of my wrist. “I have to go, Cindy. I’m sorry.”

Cindy took a deep breath. She straightened her back and lifted her chin. Even without the homecoming queen crown that would be placed atop her head later that night, she still came off as nothing short of regal.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I’ve felt like I’ve already been losing the real Ellie over the past few weeks, anyway. Have fun with your new life.”

The click of her heels echoed through the hall as Cindy walked away. I watched her turn a corner and disappear behind a row of lockers. I stayed in that spot for some time, listening to her departure until I could no longer make out her footsteps. The thing that ended up snapping me out of my trance was when a group of girls popped around the corner. They glanced at me as they passed by and their tones dropped to whispers as they entered the restroom. The group must have somehow made it past Cindy’s sentry and had heard enough to get the rumor mill going. Everyone would know I was leaving by the end of the night.

I walked down the hall, turning away from the gymnasium and continuing on through the front doors and into the night. A few people leaning against the large columns near the gym entrance glanced my way before going back to their conversations. The stairs leading down to the sidewalk were descended in a delicate fashion; I’d learned my lesson from my Quinceañera concerning how fast I should try to move in heels and a long dress. My destination was ultimately the bench at the bus stop near the edge of the parking lot, the hem of my dress flowing over a clump of melting snow as I took a seat. I glanced back at the tiny figures mingling in front of the gym.

_Please don’t let me be making a mistake._

I looked up, my focus landing on the waning Moon peeking out from behind the clouds. My eyes stayed locked on the sky, my breaths coming out in small bursts of steam. I slowly lifted my hand until my pointer finger and thumb curved around the Moon to make it look like I was attempting to pluck it from the sky.

For some reason, I found this hilarious. I started to laugh. It was a good thing I was alone, because without a doubt anybody watching the display would peg me for a crazy person.

“You’re not so far away,” I said, dropping my hand into my lap as I caught my breath. I regarded the Moon like it was an old friend I hadn’t seen for some time. With a nod, I looked away and shifted my focus to my glasses.

“Hey, Mom. Um … can you come pick me up?”

* * *

I gently knocked on the door. There was no answer. I knocked again, harder, and this time I could hear shuffling on the other side. It was the day after Homecoming, and I hadn’t been out terribly late, but I still felt guilty bothering my mom so early in the morning. My hands retreated behind my back and I fidgeted as she finally opened her bedroom door.

“Hi,” I said, trying – and failing – at not sounding much younger than I was. “Um … I, uh … I didn’t go with you to the cemetery the last couple times. Can I … can _we …_ will you take me? Please?”

My mom’s lashes fluttered. They were going grey, much like the rest of her hair. It pained me to think she was still fairly young for that sort of thing.

“Sure, hon,” Mom said, giving me the first smile I’d seen from her in a long while.

* * *

IN MEMORIAL OF THE BRAVE EXPLORERS ABOARD THE ARNO.

THEIR SACRIFICE WILL NOT BE IN VAIN: MAY WE FIND WE ARE NOT ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE.

The wind picked up, and I tucked my hands under my armpits. I should’ve brought gloves; it was stupid not to bring gloves.

This was the first time I’d been by the cemetery in a while. I actually liked cemeteries — walking along the well-tended paths as I browsed the snippets of holo-clips playing, or reading from the old-fashioned stone headstones that just had text. Well, I _had_ liked cemeteries up until six years ago. Things were different when I could attach the names and pictures of the people flashing on the screens to memories.

“Here, honey,” Mom said, taking the thick, black gloves off her hands and offering them to me. I protested, but Mom only stood with a weak smile on her face until I accepted the gloves. My fingers were enveloped in fuzzy warmth, which almost countered the guilt squirming in my stomach.

“Your uncle taught me how to knit,” Mom said. Her smile wavered as Uncle Wyatt’s picture flashed across the holo-clip. “Funny hobby for him to have had, huh?”

“Yeah.”

I reached into my mom’s pocket so I could grasp her hand. Her fingers felt like ice, but it did nothing to counter the strength in her grip.

“Do you remember that Christmas sweater you used to have? The one with the reindeer?”

I only smiled for a moment; more than that would hurt too much, “Yeah. Where it would fly around? And there were the little flashing lights like stars.”

“That,” Mom said, forcing out a laugh that sounded more like a gasp, “that was one of your uncle’s patterns. Do you remember him going on about how I messed up doing the sides?”

“No,” I said, my smile growing more natural. “I don’t remember that.”

“He could be so nit-picky,” Mom said. “Wyatt was meticulous. He always had to follow the rules – do things the way they were ‘supposed’ to be done. You have no idea how much I had to twist his arm to go along with me sneaking the FCP tablet out the first time.”

“When you would go to concerts, right?”

“Concerts … parties … even when I got my tattoo.”

My eyebrows shot up, “You have a _tattoo?!”_

“I do,” Mom said, something devious in her smile that was from so long ago it was nearly alien, “but I won’t tell you where.”

_“Mom!”_

“It’s a joke!” Mom said, laughing. “It’s a little small, but it’s on my shoulder – I’m sure you’ve seen it.”

I frowned and shook my head as if that would do something to help shake the memory loose.

“It’s a compass,” Mom said. Her smile turned melancholy. “It’s modeled after the one on the mantel that used to belong to Marcus Walsh. Your uncle got one like mine about a week after I did, same place.”

Mom used her free hand to tap her shoulder blade. “It meant we would always be able to find one another, no matter how far apart we were.”

Mom didn’t cry. I think that after all those years she didn’t have any tears left to give. That wasn’t the same for me, though.

“Oh, honey,” Mom said, guiding my gloved hand to wipe away the tears. “It’s cold out here. Let’s get in the car so your skin doesn’t get irritated.”

She was speaking from experience. My mom was well aware of what would happen when you stand outside in the middle of winter crying over people you thought you’d lost forever.

I used to be bad at keeping secrets; maybe I still am.

“Mom?” I said, my voice shaking. This caused my mom’s brows to come together in concern.

“I have to,” I said, pausing as I took a shuddering breath. “I have to tell you something.”

* * *

_“They still haven’t opened up communications, you know,”_ Mom had said, her knuckles turning white on the drive home. _“All the other families lost their privileges when the FCP exploited the condition saying they needed to be corresponding at least once every two years to fall under the communications protections under article six-six-two-eight-zero. Which made no sense, since there was obviously no way the other families could do that with the connection still down. It just … it made no sense.”_

Part of me was a little worried how quick Mom was to believe my theory that Oliver and his family may not be dead. I wondered if this denial had been something she had been clinging to all this time. It was the thing that had tethered her to the past and kept her chained in place, unable to move on. Unable to really see when her daughter went from being a kid to a young woman. Unable to see that the divide was pushing her husband further and further away until, by the time he was gone, she barely noticed. I could only pray I was right … for my mom’s sake, if nothing else.

Mom had pulled up in front of the house and cut the engine. I unbuckled my seatbelt, but paused with my hand on the door as my mom only continued to stare ahead.

 _“Wyatt was meticulous,”_ Mom said, repeating a statement she’d made earlier at the cemetery. _“When it came to his job, there was no bending the rules. What they said about him bringing his family to the engineering wing when he wasn’t supposed to … that never sat well with me.”_

I pulled up my recording of the pier as soon as we went inside. The theory I had about my mom being out of tears was countered within seconds of her seeing Oliver. She watched the clip no less than twenty times – a new round of sobbing popping up every time Oliver first turned forward.

_“That’s our Ollie – that’s him! He looks so much like his parents!”_

When she finally calmed down, Mom got quiet. I imagined she had the same expression that I did watching the clip over and over – analyzing, calculating. She even made a comment about Oliver’s school uniform.

 _“South Pines Academy?”_ Mom had said. My heart nearly burst from the amount of pride she leveled me with. _“You switching schools … that’s what all that was about. You’re brilliant, Ellie.”_

I had a sense of relief finally being able to share the burden of this secret with someone. My mom was going to be cautious, as I’d hoped, and we were going to be in this thing together.

 _“An old friend of mine used to work security there when you were little,”_ Mom had said over dinner. For once, our net gear glasses were nowhere in sight. It was nice having my mom really look at me again. _“Do you remember Victoria?”_

 _“Ms. Saito?”_ I’d asked, pulling up vague memories of a beautiful woman with a kind smile.

_“That’s the one! Victoria and I haven’t spoken much since the accident; I believe she left the FCP some time ago. But I think she’d talk to me if I reached out. I’m going to see if I can get her to meet me for coffee. Maybe I can find something out then.”_

We grinned at each other from across the table. It was like we were a part of a secret task force. The best part was, I was finally getting my family back. I was going to be able to reach out and confirm Oliver was real. I could confirm he’s here, now, and that he remembered me. I could learn what happened to him, and what happened to his family — what happened to _my_ family. I could see the rest of them again, too.

_We’re coming, guys. Don’t worry._

* * *

My little side project had taken up a fair chunk of my time. It kept me busy over the past week as Mom assured me I should sit tight until she made contact with her friend. This seemed to be easier said than done, since for days Mom complained about Ms. Saito not returning her calls. Even though she was irritable over the fact, Mom was _Mom_ again, so I didn’t find myself as disappointed as I should’ve been. There was a sparkle in her eye, and she even went back to her old habit of chatting about anything and everything over dinner between the occasional bite of food. My mom had gained some weight over the past few years, and it struck me that her smaller frame in the past was simply a byproduct of her talking so much.

The day Ms. Saito finally called back, Mom nearly fell out of her chair. She retreated to the room that used to be my dad’s office and shut the door. I didn’t like that she was keeping secrets, but when she emerged from the room a few minutes later, she was walking on cloud nine.

_“You’re not going to believe this – Victoria agreed something’s up at the FCP! Victoria was always sharp as a tack – you two would be like two peas in a pod. We’re meeting for coffee tomorrow, and I think we’ll really be on to something, honey.”_

After my mom left to meet Ms. Saito, I busied myself with the simple comic book I was putting together. The object was crudely stapled and only about a dozen pages long. The illustrations were so simple that most people would assume it had been put together by a little kid. I justified this by reasoning that Oliver had inherited all the artistic talent this generation of our family had to give.

The book had been put together as a gift for Caleb, since I figured I should go all out in making my first impression a good one. Even if it was an object meant for a six-year-old, I figured Oliver would also get a kick out of it.

The comic opened up with a young boy in what appeared to be a caped suit of whites and reds who had been captured by a group of monsters called Whirlypearls. The boy was revealed to be the superhero, Space Boy, who had been captured by the Whirlypearls while in search of a treasure known as the Nova Ruby. He’d been locked up in a large cage, and no matter how much he tried flying around different parts of his prison to escape, he couldn’t seem to find a way out. Running out of options, his only choice was to lift his head and call for help with all his might. He wasn’t sure if anyone would hear his call … but he had hope.

Appearing in the sky, dressed in a costume of browns and blues that looked like it _may_ have been some sort of creature (if you squinted), was another superhero. She had dark hair braided over her shoulders in plaits and a large smile etched across her face. She was Dino Girl – the smile never falling from her face even as she touched ground before an army of Whirlypearls.

 _‘You don’t look so tough,’_ Dino Girl said, lifting her robotic fists. _‘Let’s dance.’_

Dino Girl had every reason to be confident. She had super strength, and an Extreme Tornado-Blasting Black-Hole-Explosion Fossil Ray that she used to blast aside the sea of Whirlypearls without breaking a sweat. Any of the enemies left standing threw down their weapons and ran to the bushes (or hills; the drawings made it hard to tell).

Finally, Dino Girl reached her target. She grabbed the bars of Space Boy’s cage, pulling them apart with all her might until they broke away with a ‘Snap!’

Dino Girl leaned into the cage and held out her hand. Space Boy accepted her assistance and regained his freedom.

 _‘Thanks!’_ Space Boy said as his expression brightened. _‘You look kinda familiar; have we met?’_

Dino Girl put her hands on her hips as she struck her most heroic pose. _‘We did, a long time ago,’_ she said. _‘You may not remember, but I made you a promise. I promised I would protect you, and dinosaurs don’t break promises!’_

My attention left the comic as I heard the sound of knocking at the front door. The net gear glasses sitting at the edge of my desk were snapped up as I slid them on my nose. A few quick blinks brought up the live feed for the doorstep. I frowned – there was no one there.

There was another knock, a little louder. A chill ran down my spine.

“Eloise.”

I slowly turned in my seat. Mr. Silber was standing in the doorway to my room, his posture relaxed as his knuckles rested against the door. He was regarding me if him standing there was the most natural thing in the world. It had been a while since our last meeting, but he looked just as he did years ago – even down to the pressed navy suit.

“Ah, right,” Mr. Silber said, lowering his hand. “You prefer to go by Ellie; you mentioned that the last time I was here. I saved you the trouble and showed myself in this time around, though.”

Two figures stepped into view behind him, dressed in the sort of dark camo outfits and black face masks I only saw in movies.

“Ellie, you’re going to do as we say and come quietly,” Mr. Silber said, his voice revealing no emotion. “Do you understand?”

My breaths grew short. A tremble overtook my hands that I couldn’t get to go away.

“Please don’t make this difficult,” Mr. Silber said. “We have permission to eliminate you if you try to fight. It’ll be better for everyone involved if you cooperate.”

Mr. Silber stepped aside and gestured to the figures behind him, “you’re going to allow them to escort you downstairs; you’ll be told what to do from there.”

My hands balled into fists.

“Cooperate for your mother’s sake, Ellie.”

Fear wrapped itself around my heart. The tension left my hands and I allowed them to drop. I used the back of my chair to steady myself as I got to my feet, my legs feeling shaky like I’d just come out of a sprint. By no means had I ever imagined taking a few steps forward could be so difficult. I glanced at Mr. Silber out of the corner of my eye as I slowly passed him by. He didn’t meet my gaze.

“Come on,” one of the figures said. The person standing to my left snatched the glasses off my face while the one to my right grabbed me by the elbow and guided me down the hall. I gasped at the sight of a handful of other darkly clad figures buzzing about the upper landing. A few of them darted into my room the moment I stepped out; others were busy grabbing items from my mom’s closet and dresser and stuffing them into boxes.

I heard Mr. Silber’s voice drift from my room as I began to descend the stairs.

“Remember, the goal is to make it look like her mother kidnapped her in a panic. Take essential items from both rooms, but not too much. Make sure to pack valuables in a separate box – we’ll set that aside for the pawn shops along the interstate going west …”

The lights downstairs had been dimmed, the curtains closed. We paused at the front door as the attention of the figure to my right spoke to someone I couldn’t see.

“All clear?”

After a beat, they turned to me.

“You’re going to enter the car at the end of the walkway – make sure to close and lock the door behind you like you normally would.”

The door was pulled open. My mom’s red sedan was across the front yard, idling in the street. I could see my mom in the driver’s seat as the passenger door popped open. Relief washed over me. I took a step forward … but paused.

I could make out someone sitting in the backseat of the car. They were holding something up to my mom’s cheek, partially obscuring her face.

It was a gun.

I flinched as the figure to my right leaned into my ear.

“Act natural.”

My bare feet hit cold concrete as I stepped outside. I turned my back to the car, keeping my eyes locked on the door handle as I gently pulled the door shut. Panic caused my gut to churn as it took me longer to lock the door than normal; the shake to my hand gave me a hard time lining up my thumb with the scanner. When I finally heard a ‘click,’ I turned and scurried down the short path leading to the sidewalk. I was wearing shorts, and the frigid air caused my legs to break out in goosebumps. The discomfort from the cold was pushed to the back of my mind as everything became hyper focused on the gun being held in front of my mom’s face. A whimper escaped me as I approached the passenger door, creating a wispy cloud around my lips.

The figure in the backseat didn’t wait for me to be fully seated before speaking.

“Close the door.”

I whipped around to follow the command. The door locked the second it was closed.

“Buckle yourself in,” the figure said. My gaze dropped to my lap as I yanked on the seatbelt. I didn’t get a great look at the person in the back, but from the arm reaching between my mother and I, I could tell they were dressed in the same dark camo outfit as the others in my house.

“We clear to depart?” the figure said, withdrawing their arm. The tone of their voice caused me to pause as I lifted my hands from the seat buckle. It was … too casual.

“All clear.”

I raised my eyes. The voice from the driver didn’t belong to my mother – neither did her face. She was, however, wearing the same outfit my mom had been in earlier. And now that I had a clear view, I could make out a section of dark hair peeking out from where it wasn’t quite lined up with her blonde, curly wig.

I swayed in my seat as the car jerked into motion. My gaze remained fixed on the impersonator as I was washed with a feeling of horror.

The driver cut the lights at the end of the block; plunging us into darkness.

* * *

“Valuables box, sir?”

James Silber had been busy studying an object on Ellie Naxario’s desk. He turned to regard the operative at his side holding out a necklace. The piece of jewelry stood out in a stark fashion against the deep grey material of the operative’s gloves – a silver chain with large cuts of blue crystal strung between links, the crystals sparkling with tiny pinpricks of light.

“No,” James said, running a thumb over the material. The glass was worn with various nicks and scratches; the crystal in his grasp didn’t sparkle quite as much as its neighbors, likely due to age. “Leave it – it’s just fashion jewelry. No one would try to pawn it off.”

“Looked like it could be valuable, to me.”

“I feel sorry for your wife if you’re unable to make that distinction,” James said, returning his attention to the desk. His expression fell to something unreadable as he reached out. A flimsy-looking book was lifted up in a delicate manner.

_‘The Adventures of Space Boy and Dino Girl: Comic Issue Number One’_

James flipped the book over. The back cover was blank, save for a small annotation toward the bottom:

_‘Dedicated to my family.’_

“Sir, I believe we’re ready to move out.”

James didn’t answer right away. He took the small book and tucked it into this jacket.

“Alright, you know the drill – we were never here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who read my little story!! Comments or feedback are always welcome :)


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